THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


HONOUK      1)K      BAI-ZAC 
(In  Ills  working  garb.l 


FaoNTiBPiKCE— Volume  One. 


THE 


HdlMAN  GOMCBY 


BEING  THE   BEST   NOVELS    FROM   THE 
"COMEDIE   HUMAINE"    OF 


HONORE    DE    BALZAC 


THE   PURSE 
COUSIN  PONS 

WHY    THE   ATHEIST    PRAYED 
THE  MYSTERY  OF  LA  GRANDE 
BRETECHE 


ALBERT   SAVARUS 
THE  HOUSE   OF   THE   TENNIS- 
PLAYING  CAT 
A  TRAGEDY  BY  THE  SEA 
MODESTE   MIGNON 


ILLUSTRATED  WITH  SIXTEEN  ENGMYINGS  ON  WOOD  FKOM  THE 

BEST  FRENC][  EDITION 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    DESCRIPTIVE    OF    THE    AUTHOR's    STUPENDOUS 

AND    BRILLIANT    WORK 
BY 

JULIUS     CHAMBERS 


IN  THREE  V0LaMES-V0l2aME  0NE 


New  York  : 
PETER   FENELON    COLLIER. 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  Peteb  Fenelox  Collier 


All  rights  reserved. 


Contents    of   Volume    One. 


INTRODUCTION—"  LA  CoMEDiE  HuMAiNE  "  AND  ITS  Ethical  Puepose 5 


2  SCENES    OF   PRIVATE   LIFE. 

'  PAGE 

Y"    1— THE  PURSE 17 

Wi   2— COUSIN  PONS 34 

8— WHY  THE  ATHEIST  PRAYED 217 

4— MYSTERY  OP  LA  GRANDE  BR^TECHE 826 

5-ALBERT  SAVARUS 237 

6— HOUSE  OP  THE  TENNIS-PLAYING  CAT 297 

7— A  TRAGEDY  BY  THE  SEA 328 

8— MODESTE  MIGNON 335 


LIST     OF     ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Frontispiece— Honors  de  Balzac  (in  his  working  garb). 

COUSIN  PONS: 

La  Cibot  and  Ri5;monencq. 

SCHMUCKE  AND  PONS— "  The  flaneurs  of  the  quarter  had  nick-named  them 'The  Pair  of 
Nut-Crackers.'  " 

THE   HOUSE   OF  THE  TENNIS-PLAYING  CAT: 
M.  GuiLLAUME—The  Typical  Merchant.    (Drawn  by  Meissonier.) 


(3) 


INTRODUCTION. 


BALZAC  AND   THE    COMEDY  OF   LIFE. 


"  The  magnitude  of  a  plan  that  embraces  at  once  a  study  and  criticism  of  society,  an  analysis 
of  its  evils,  and  a  discussion  of  its  principles,  justifies  me,  I  think,  in  giving  to  my  work  the  title 
under  which  it  will  appear — 'The  Human  Comedy.'  It, is  ambitious,  I  grant  you.  But  do  I  not 
succeed  ?  Here  is  the  work  ;  let  the  public  judge."  —  Balzac,  in  the  original  Preface  to  the 
Coviplete  Edition  of  his  Works.     Paris,  July,  IS42. 


HoNORE  DE  Balzac,  like  Horace,  had 
an  excellent  opinion  of  his  own  work,  and 
never  was  chary  of  expressing  it.  The 
scheme  was  too  ambitious  to  be  completed 
in  the  short  span  of  one  life,  and  he,  de- 
spite his  remarkable  energy,  failed  to 
fully  realize  his  hopes.  His  character 
bristled  with  eccentricities,  and  his  career 
\vas  a  tissue  of  contradictions.  He  was  a 
wild  spendthrift,  but  his  appreciation  of 
the  value  of  money  in  constructing  plots, 
and  his  skill  at  financiering — in  fiction — 
are  shown  in  many  of  his  novels.*  One 
thing  may  be  said  of  him  without  fear  of 
contradiction :  he  was  a  defender  of  the 
home ;  he  believed  it  to  be  the  source  of 
all  good,  as  well  as  the  nest  of  human 
misery — the  nurserj^  of  unhappiness. 

From  an  ethical  point  of  view,  Balzac's 
morals  are  faultless.  He  was  a  realist,  as 
Erail  Zola  is  to-day ;  but  with  a  refine- 
ment of  imagination  and  a  facility  of 
mental  analysis  that  Zola  does  not  pos- 
sess. He  hated  vulgarity  and  crime,  and 
made  it  so  odious  that  several  of  his  most 
disagreeable  books  might  be  issued  as  re- 
ligious tracts.  A  score  of  biographies  of 
Balzac  have  been  issued,  but  the  editor 
of  the  present  edition  would  recommend 

*  Examples,  for  instance,  "Eugenie  Grandet," 
"Cesar  Birotteau,"  "The  Marriage  Contract," 
and  "  Gaudissart  II." 


the  one  written  by  Theophile  Gautier,  the 
only  man  of  Balzac's  day  beside  Victor 
Hugo  large  enough  in  brain  and  repu- 
tation to  write  the  life  of  The  Master  of 
the  Modern  Novel.  Gautier's  biography 
was  written  after  Balzac's  death,  and 
wiiile  it  is  eulogistic,  it  is  fair  and  justly 
critical. 

In  outlining  the  scope  of  the  wonderful 
series  of  books  to  which  Balzac  himself 
refers  in  the  preface  to  the  original  edi- 
tion, quoted  above,  it  is  proper  to  explain 
exactly  what  Balzac  undertook.  He  had 
written  and  published  about  thirty  novels 
before  he  attracted  attention  ;  and  it  was 
not  until  1827  that  he  conceived  the  idea 
of  a  great  work  that  should  dissect  the 
human  heart  as  a  demonstrator  uses  the 
scalpel  in  a  lecture  room.  He  planned 
a  series  of  one  hundred  stories,  which 
he  classified  under  tlie  eight  great 
heads  : — Scenes  from  Private,  Provincial, 
Parisian,  Political,  Military  and  Country 
Life,  with  Philosophical  and  Analytical 
Studies.  Of  these,  the  Scenes  from  Politi- 
cal, Military  and  Country  Life  were  in- 
complete at  the  'time  of  the  author's 
death.  The  one  hundred  novels  of  this 
series  were  written  in  the  twenty  years 
between*  1827  and  1847.  Balzac  had  a 
general  idea  of  the  plan  upon  which  he 
was  building  liis  great  structure,  and 
wrote  the  stories  in  whatever  order  best 

(5) 


INTRODUCTION. 


suited  his  mercurial  temperament.  The 
final  classiflcalion  which  they  were  to 
take  in  "The  Human  Comedy  "  bore  no 
relation  whatever  to  the  order  in  which 
the}-  were  produced.  During  some  of  the 
yeai's  he  worked  witli  superhuman  enersry, 
turning  out  as  many  as  six  or  eight  com- 
plete novels,  while  in  other  years  he 
would  be  satisfied  with  two  or  three. 

We  cannot  do  better  than  to  give  at 
this  stage  a  complete  list  of  the  novels 
composing  this  work;  and,  in  addition,  we 
have  added  to  thcur  names  the  date  of 
original  publication,  whenever  obtainable, 
to  indicate  the  order  in  which  the  books 
appeared.  It  lias  been  deemed  best  to 
quote  the  original  French  titles : — 

PLAN  OF  "  LA  COMfiDIE  HUMAINE." 

Scenes  FROM  Private  Life:— L.aMaison  duChat- 
qui-pelotte  (1839),  Le  Bal  de  Sceaux  (1829).  La 
Bourse  (1832),  La  Vendetta  (1830),  Madame  Firmi- 
ani  (1831).  Una  Double  Famille  (1830),  La  Paix  du 
Menage  (1839),  La  Fausse  Maltresse  (1843),  Etude 
de  fenime  (1830),  Autre  etude  de  femme  (1830), 
La  Grande  Breteche  (1830),  Albert  Savarus  (1843), 
Memoire.s  de  Deux  Jeunes  Mariees  (1841),  Une  Fille 
d'Eve  (1838),  La  Fomme  de  Trente  Ans  (1835), 
La  Femme  abandonnee  (1832),  La  Grenadiere 
(1832),  Le  Message  (1833),  Gobseck  (1830),  Le 
Contrat  de  Mariage  (1835),  Un  Debut  dans  la  Vie 
(1842),  Modeste  Mignon  (1844),  Beatrix  (1844), 
Honorine  (1843),  Le  Colonel  Chabert  (1832),  La 
Messe  de  I'Athee  (1886),  L'Interdictioa  (1836), 
Pierre  Grassou  (1839). 

Scenes  from  Provincial  Life  : — Ursule  Mirouet 
(1841),  Eugenie  Grandet  (1833);  Les  Celibataires  :— 
Pierrette  (1839),  Le  Cure  de  Tours  (1839),  and  Un 
Menage  de  Gargon  (1842) ;  Les  Parisiens  en  Pro- 
vince : — L'illustre  GauJissart  (1832),  Muse  du  De- 
partement ;  Les  Rivalites  : — La  Vieille  Fille  (1830), 
Le  Cabinet  des  Antiques  (1837)  ;  Le  Lys  dans 
la  Vallee  (1835);  Illusions  Perdues  : — Les  Deux 
Poetes,  Un  grand  Homme  de  Province  a  Paris, 
1st   and  2d    parts.  Eve  et  David  (all  in  1843). 

Scenes  from  Parisian  Life  :— Esther  Heureuse, 
A  combien  I'aniour  revient  aux  Vieillards,  Ou 
menent  les  mauvais  Chemins  (all  in  1843)  ;  La 
Derniure  Incarnation  de  Vautrin,  Un  Prince  de 
la  Boheme  (1845).  Un  Homme  d'affaires  (184.5), 
Gaudissart  II.  (1844).  Les  Comediens  sans  le 
Savoir  (1840),  Histoir  des  Treize.  Ferragus  (1833), 
Duc-hesse  de  Langeais  (1834),  Fille  aux  veux  d'Or 
(1834),  Le  Pere  Goriot  (1834).  Cesar*  Bu-otteau 
(1887).  LaMaisonNucingen  (1837),  Les  Secrets  de 
la  Princesse  de  Cadignan  (1839).  Les  Employes, 
Sarrasine  (1830),  Facino  Cane  (1836),  Les  Parents 


pauvres  : — La  Cousine  Bette  (1846),  and  Le  Cousin 
Pons  (1846). 

Scenes  from  Political  Life  : — Une  Tenebreuse 
Affaire  (1841).  Un  Episode  sous  la  Terreur  (1831), 
L'Envers  de  I'Histoire  Contemporaine  (1845),  Ma- 
dame de  la  Clianterie,  L'luitie.  Z.  Marcas  (1840), 
le  Depute  d'Arcis. 

Scenes  from  Military  Life  :— Les  Cliouans 
(1837),  and  Une  Passion  dans  le  desert  (1832). 

Scenes  from  Country  Life  :— Le  Medecin  de 
Campagn  (1833),  Le  Cure  de  Village  (1845),  and 
Les  Paysans  (1847). 

PHiLOSOPmcAL  Stijdies  :— La  Peau  de  Chagrin 
(1830),  La  Recherche  de  TAbsolu  (1834),  Christ  en 
Flandre(1831),  Melmoth  reconcilie  (1835),  Le  Chef- 
d'oeuvre  inconnu  (1832),  L'Enfant  Maudit  (1836), 
Gambara  (1837),  Massimilla  Doni  (1839),  Les  Ma- 
rana  (1832),  Adieu  (1830),  Le  Requisitionnaire 
(1831),  El  Verdugo,  Un  Drame  au  bord  de  la  nier 
(1834),  L'Auberge  Rouge  (1831),  L'Elixir  de  Longue 
Vie  (1830),  Maitre  Cornelius  (1831),  Sur  Catherine 
de  Medicis  (1838),  Le  Martyr  Calviniste,  La  Confi- 
dence des  Ruggieri,  Les  deux  Reves,  Louis  Lambert 
(1833),  Les  Proscrits  (1831),  and  Seraphita  (1833). 

Analytical  Studies  :— Physiologie  du  Mariage 
(1829),  and  Petites  Miseres  de  la  vie  Conjugale. 

From  tliese  eight  great  classes  we  have 
selected  six,  and  from  each  of  these  six 
sub-divisions  have  taken  one  or  more 
novels.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that 
the  choice  had  to  be  made  with  great 
care,  because  there  are  blemishes  in  some 
of  the  works  that  render  them  undesir- 
able for  translation.  "  The  Human  Com- 
edy "  contains  very  little  humor^ — if  we 
except  "A  Start  in  Life,"  in  which  are 
the  author's  own  experiences  in  a  law- 
yer's office,  "  The  Illustrious  Gaudissart" 
and  '-The  Old  Maid."  Rather  does  it 
deal  with  avarice,  covetousness  and  pas- 
sion, than  the  tender  emotions  of  human 
life.  Indeed,  this  masterpiece  of  human 
ingenuity  contains  more  tragedy  than 
comedj'. 

We  can  only  attempt  a  few  words  in 
relation  to  each  of  the  stories  comprising 
this  stupendous  work,  covering,  in  its  sev- 
eral editions,  from  twenty  to  fifty-three 
volumes.  "  The  House  of  the  Tennis- 
Playing  Cat"  we  reprint.  "The  Ball 
at  Sceaux  "  is  quite  well  known,  the 
scene  being  laid  at  the  quaint  little  vil- 
lage among  the  hills,  thirty  miles  from 
Paris,  now  reached  over  tlie  crookedest 
railroad  in  France.     Parisians  of  to-day 


INTRODUCTION. 


visit  the  place  on  Sundays,  and  remember 
it  chiefly  because  of  the  Restaurant  Rob- 
inson, where  dinners  are  served  in  little 
booths,  hig-h  among-  the  tree-tops.  "  The 
Purse  "  is  one  of  the  most  charming  little 
bits  of  innocence  and  nature  in  all  Balzac. 
Wc  have  chosen  to  begin  these  volumes 
with  it,  and  we  think  the  touch  of  hu- 
manity that  permeates  it  will  justify  its 
selection  as  the  opening  chapter  in  "  The 
Human  Comedy." 

"  A  Double  Family,"  the  next  novel  in 
the  series,  is  constructed  along  the  lines 
made  familiar  by  a  host  of  other  writers, 
but  contains  so  many  objectionable  feat- 
ures that  it  is  omitted.  The  plot  may 
be  outlined,  however  :  —  One  family  is 
legitimate,  tlie  other  illegitimate.  The 
father  is  a  man  of  integrity,  and  after- 
ward becomes  a  distinguished  jurist. 
Balzac  shows  distinctly  how  this  man 
was  driven  from  his  home  by  the  harsh- 
ness and  coldness  of  his  wife ;  and,  true 
to  his  ethical  purity,  he  also  makes  it 
clear  that  tlie  new  love  was  more  un- 
worthy of  him  than  the  first.  The 
climax  is  reached  when  one  of  the  natu- 
ral sons,  who  is  accused  of  a  serious 
crime,  is  brought  before  one  of  the  legiti- 
mate sons,  sitting  as  a  legal  functionary. 
The  father  appears  boldly  in  court  c^nd 
confesses  his  shame  and  humiliation. 
From  a  French  point  of  view,  the  novel 
is  supposed  to  inculcate  a  highly  moral 
lesson,  and  the  skill  with  which  this  story 
is  handled  is  wonderful.  Caroline,  the 
real  hero  of  this  tale,  is  drawn  as  on  a 
steel  plate — so  carefully  that  not  a  line 
is  wanting. 

"  Why  tlie  Atheist  Prayed  "  is  remark- 
able because  in  it  is  told  the  eai-ly  life  of 
the  great  surgeon,  Bianchon,  who  reap- 
pears in  so  many  subsequent  volumes. 
For  this  reason  it  has  been  inserted 
ahead  of  its  order  as  fixed  by  the  author. 
"A  Second  Study  of  Woman"  contains 
a  striking  dissertation  on  the  decadence 
of  great  families  and  the  disappearance 
of  the  society  grande '  dame  after  the 
Revolution  of  July,  with  an  etching, 
made  in  Balzac's  most  characteristic 
style,  of  the  type  of  woman  who  suc- 
ceeded her. 


"  The  Mystery  of  La  Grande  Breteche," 
an  old  chateau  on  the  banks  of  the  river 
Loir,  is  a  bit  of  condensed  horror.  Like 
"A  Piece  of  an  Ass's  Skin,"  it  may  be 
described  as  a  fantasy  and  an  improba- 
bilitj',  such  as  Poe  and  Hoffmann  delight- 
ed to  write.  Candidly,  we  do  not  think 
these  tales  ought  to  be  in  this  series  at 
all,  as,  with  these  two  exceptions,  Balzac 
deals  with  the  real  and  moves  his  charac- 
ters about  in  the  living  current  of  human 
life.  Of  course  we  do  not  forg-et  "  Ursule 
Mirouet,"  who,  as  tlie  first  of  the  provin- 
cial heroines,  gives  lier  name  to  a  "  goody- 
good}'^  "  story,  such  as  Richardson  might 
have  composed,  and  forms  the  background 
for  a  conventional  ghost  storj'.  There 
is  no  incongruity  in  the  introduction  of 
ghosts  into  novels  depicting  human  suffer- 
ing or  struggle. 

To  again  take  up  the  chain,  as  Balzac 
laid  it  down,  we  reach  "Albert  Savarus," 
which  we  have  reprinted  in  full.  It  con- 
tains one  of  those  descriptions  of  country- 
town  society  in  which  Balzac  shone  to 
such  great  advantage,  and  the  hero  and 
heroine  form  two  very  strong  figures  for 
an  analytical  mind  such  as  the  author's. 
Incidentally,  it  introduces  a  charming  de- 
scription of  life  at  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
probabh'  the  most  famous  monastery  in 
the  world.  The  next  novel  in  the  series 
is  "The  History  of  Two  Marriages  "—a 
story  of  two  brides,  each  the  exact  an- 
tithesis of  the  other,  though  educated  in 
the  same  convent.  The  style  is  defective, 
because  Balzac  does  not  show  as  a  master 
in  dealing  with  story-telling  by  corre- 
spondence. The  letters  of  these  young 
women  cover  reams  of  paper  in  some 
instances — an  error  of  fact  that  cannot  be 
overlooked.  The  book  is  interesting,  just 
as  a  case  of  St.  Vitus's  dance  might  be. 
One  of  the  ladies  is  perfectly  lovable, 
and  the  other  is  utterly  detestable.  "A 
Daughter  of  Eve  "  relates  how  a  man  of 
the  world  and  a  loving  husband  rescues 
his  young  wife  from  a  false  position,  and 
saves  a  scandal  through  great  tact  and 
cleverness. 

Passing  rapidly  over  the  five  short 
stories  that  follow,  we  come  to  "The 
Marriage  Contract,"  interest    in   which 


8 


INTnODUCTlOX. 


contors  aho>it  the  preparation  of  the  anti- 
nuptial  obli.uations  by  two  notaries,  one 
of  the  old  and  the  other  of  the  new  school. 
In  this  stoi-y  Balzac  shows  the  results  of 
liis  leg-al  training-,  and  more  especially  of 
his  irksome  clerical  duties  in  a  notary's 
office.  The  interests  of  the  about-to-he 
husband  serioush*  conflict  with  those  of 
his  intended  bride,  and  the  young-  notary, 
who  appears  for  the  young  girl's  mother 
(she  having  dissipated  her  daughter's 
fortune),  prepares  a  cunningly  baited  de- 
ception for  the  bridegroom,  which  is  only 
f(3iled  by  the  sagacity  of  the  old  and  ex- 
perienced notary.  After  the  w^edding,  a 
system  of  impoverishment  begins  at  once, 
and  the  husband  is  eventually  shorn  like 
a  lamb.  "A  Start  in  Life  "  further  dis- 
closes the  tricks  of  the  legal  profession, 
and  is,  in  several  respects,  the  most  hu- 
morous of  all  the  books  that  Balzac  has 
■written.  A  young  man  begins  life  vith 
thoroughly  developed  vanity,  of  which  he 
is  eventually  cured  by  heroic  treatment. 
It  twice  proves  his  ruin  in  business,  but 
he  is  finally  induced  to  enter  the  army, 
wherein  he  attains  distinction. 

"Modeste  Mignon  "  is  as  near  an  ap- 
proach to  the  English  idea  of  a  novel  as 
it  would  be  possible  for  any  Frenchman 
to  write.  It  is  purely  and  simply  a  love 
tale.  Mignon  might  be  Susan  Jane  Jones. 
She  dwells  with  her  blind  mother  in  the 
strictest  seclusion  at  Havre.  Her  father 
is  abroad  seeking  his  fortune,  and  .she 
takes  advantage  of  the  blindness  of  her 
mother  to  fall  in  love  with  Canalis,  a 
celebrated  poet,  whose  verses  are  the 
fad  of  the  day,  but  whose  face  she  never 
has  seen,  except  in  a  shop-window  litho- 
graph. She  sends  him  a  letter  under  an 
assumed  name  and  gets  disagreeably  en- 
tangled. Canalis  hands  the  first  letter 
over  to  his  private  secretary  to  answer. 
The  young  man  conducts  the  correspond- 
ence with  Mignon  in  his  master's  name, 
eventually  falls  in  love  with  the  girl,  who 
finds  in  the  sham  poet  a  far  more  at- 
tractive person  than  the  real  one  proves 
to  be,  when  she  Ilnally  beholds  him.  Just 
as  the  embarrassment  is  becoming  criti- 
cal, Mignon 's  father  opportunely  returns 
to  Havre,   rescues    her,   and    the    story 


ends  pleasantly  with  the  marriage  of  the 
"soft"  young  girl  and  the  rather  too 
experienced  secretary. 

Of  "  Beatri.K  "  very  little  need  be  said. 
Its  whole  atniosphere  is  unreal  and  de- 
ceptive. In  many  respects  it  is  so  com- 
plicated that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
disentangle  the  several  threads  of  the 
story.  The  book  is  redeemed  by  one  of 
Balzac's  marvel ously  clever  word  paint- 
ings of  a  corner  of  Brittany,  unvisited 
by  strangers  prior  to  the  advent  of  rail- 
roads. The  tone  of  the  book,  however,  is 
thoroughly  unworthy  of  the  great  author. 
"  Honorine  "  is  a  dainty  bit  of  domestic 
drama  of  true  Parisian  character.  Briefly, 
it  is  the  storj''  of  a  husband  who,  although 
deserted  by  a  heartless  and  unworthy 
wife  years  before  the  tale  opens,  and 
herself  forsaken  in  turn,  watches  over 
the  erring  woman  and  secretly  provides 
for  every  want  of  hers.  It  is  the  stoi-y 
of  a  love  that  could  not  be  destroyed  by 
cruelty  or  deception.  Its  weak  point  is 
that  the  honorable  and  sagacious  hus- 
band attempts  to  woo  the  frivolous  wo- 
man back  to  him  by  deputy,  employing 
a  messenger  who  is  utterly'  unworthy-  of 
his  confidence.  He  is  successful,  and  the 
repentant  wife  dies  at  peace. 

"  Colonel  Chabert  "is  in  many  respects 
a  chef  d'oeuvre.  It  ought  to  be  univer- 
sally known,  though  it  is  very  painful  and 
sad.  He  is  the  French  Colonel  Newcome, 
and  it  is  no  disparagement  of  Thackeray 
to  say  that  Chabert  rises  to  a  loftier 
pinnacle  of  self-sacrificing  manhood  than 
does  his  hero.  The  magnanimous  English- 
man gives  up  fortune  and  friends  from  an 
exaggerated  point  of  honor  and  calmly 
goes  to  die  in  an  almshouse ;  Balzac's 
hero  not  onlj'  sacrifices  all  these,  but 
name,  fame  and  personal  identity,  because 
of  an  infamous  woman,  whose  conduct  had 
literally'  disgusted  him  with  life.  In  this 
book  we  have  the  picture  of  an  honest  and 
skillful  lawyer,  who  appears  in  many 
scenes  in  "The  Human  Comedy  "  under 
the  name  of  Derville.  The  fate  of  poor 
Chabert  extorts  from  Derville  the  re- 
markable comment :  "There  exists,"  says 
he,  "  in  society  three  men  who  cannot 
possibly  esteem   the   world :    the  priest. 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  doctor  and  the  lawyer.  They  wear 
black,  perhaps,  because  they  are  in  mourn- 
ing for  all  the  virtues  and  for  all  the  illu- 
sions." 

With  this  comment  of  an  old  lawyer 
upon  the  three  great  professions,  we  may 
pass  to  a  consideration  of  the  Scenes 
from  Provincial  Life,  the  second  grand 
sub-division  of  "'The  Human  Comedy," 
which,  Balzac  says,  "represent  theage  of 
passion,  scheming,  self-interest  and  am- 
bition." Of  "Ursule  Mirouet "  we  have 
alreadj^  spoken.  Ursule  is  an  orphan, 
adopted  by  Dr.  ilinorel,  of  Nemours,  an 
amiable  old  man,  with  the  serious  moral 
defect  that  he  has  absolutely  no  religion 
whatever.  From  this  condition  of  con- 
firmed atheism  he  is  converted  by  his 
ward,  just  as  he  would  be  in  a  Sunday- 
school  book.  On  the  doctor's  death,  a 
will  which  was  supposed  to  be  in  exist- 
ence, providing  for  her  maintenance,  can- 
not be  found  because  it  has  been  secreted 
by  one  of  the  heirs.  At  this  point  the 
gentle-hearted  doctor's  shade  appears  to 
Ursule  and  reveals  the  contemptible  con- 
duct of  the  thief,  after  which  the  law 
makes  things  easy  for  the  young  girl. 
Incidentally,  Ursule  is  beloved  of  a  very 
charming  young  man,  and  they  get  mar- 
ried after  the  fortune  is  found  and  "live 
happily  forever  after."  The  fact  that 
the  book  is  dedicated  by  Balzac  to  his 
niece  would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  is 
intended  for  the  consumption  of  young 
ladies.  The  really  admirable  passages  in 
the  book  are  found  in  those  portions  de- 
picting the  greediness  and  the  avarice  of 
the  relatives  of  the  amiable  old  doctor  to 
possess  themselves  of  portions  of  his  es- 
tate. The  next  novel  in  the  series  is  the 
famous  and  immortal  "  Eugenie  Gran- 
det,"  which  we  reprint  in  full.  Much 
that  is  sad  and  painful  might  be  omitted 
without  sacrificing  the  beauty  of  the 
story.  The  heartless  character  of  the 
miserly  husband  and  father  is  brought 
out  with  a  painful  fullness  that  makes 
it  in  places  very  disti'essing  reading ;  but 
the  pictures  of  the  Grandet  household 
can  never  be  foi'gotten.  As  a  cap-sheaf 
to  these  two  stories,  which  have  both  been 
sad  in  several  ways,  we  have  "Pierrette." 


She  is  a  young  woman  of  angelic  beauty 
and  saintliness,  adopted  by  two  horrible 
people,  an  old  bachelor  and  an  old  maid, 
brother  and  sister.  Though  thej'  are  her 
cousins,  they  neglect  her,  persecute  her, 
and  finally  do  her  to  death.  "  Pierrette  " 
was  dedicated  to  the  wealthy  Russian 
lady.  Countess  Eva  de  Hanska,  who  in 
1850  became  Balzac's  wife.  After  com- 
pleting this  story  it  seems  quite  natural 
to  study  the  sufferings  of  "  The  Cure  of 
Tours,"  who  is  only  one  priest  worried 
b^'  another  with  de^^lish  ingenuit3'. 

From  this  point,  the  ground  clears  and 
becomes  brighter.  In  ••'A  Bachelor's  Es- 
tablishment "  we  see  a  rich  old  imbecile 
completely  under  the  thumb  of  a  pert  and 
pretty  young  housekeeper.  Strange  to  say, 
the  interest  in  the  storj'  centers  wholly  in 
the  family  of  the  bachelor's  sister.  Agathe 
Bridau,  a  thoroughly  virtuous  and  amiable 
woman,  is  a  widow  and  the  mother  of  two 
sons.  The  elder,  Philippe,  is  an  officer  of 
the  Imperial  Guards,  and  a  thoroughly 
developed  blackguard ;  the  younger  is  a 
simple-minded  artist  and  an  affectionate 
son.  Of  course,  anybody  who  has  studied 
life  need  not  be  told  that  Phillipe  is  the 
mother's  favorite.  Her  heart  goes  out 
to  him  whenever  he  is  accused  of  wrong- 
doing, and  she  finds  a  ready  explanation 
for  all  his  waywardness.  After  ruining 
his  mother,  robbing  his  brother,  and 
causing  the  death  of  his  aunt,  he  is  put 
under  police  surveillance  for  five  j'ears 
because  of  his  connection  with  a  Bona- 
partist  plot.  From  that  point  he  de- 
velops into  a  thoroughly  hardened  villain. 
He  eventually  becomes  a  personage  of 
distinction  and  very  rich,  when  he  natu- 
rally evolves  the  ingratitude  that  has 
been  latent  in  his  character  from  the 
beginning,  cuts  his  mother  and  brother, 
and  forsakes  his  wretched  wife.  True  to 
his  ethical  instincts,  Balzac  punishes  the 
scapegrace  by  giving  him  a  miserable 
death  in  Algeria. 

Now  for  a  gleam  of  real  comedy.  ■■  The 
Illustrious  Gaudissart "  is  the  -stctim  of 
a  hoax,  and  we  extract  manj'^  a  hearty 
laugh  at  his  expense.  The  scene  of  "The 
Muse  of  the  Department"  might  be  laid 
in  Washington,  where  there  are  many  of 


10 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  frail  sisterhood  who  resemble  the 
heroine  of  this  story.  She  is  not  a  trag'ic 
muse,  but  a  verj'  naug-litj-  one.  "  The 
Old  Maid  "  is  decidedly  in  a  comic  vein. 
An  English  critic  has  very  truthfully  said 
that  this  storj-  is  "  worthy  of  being  the 
joint  production  of  Stern  and  Swift,  for 
it  combines  the  naive  droller^'  of  the  first 
with  the  caustic  cj'nicism  of  the  second." 
The  hero,  the  Chevalier  de  Valois,  boasts 
of  an  enormous  nose,  wears  diamond  ear- 
rings, stuffs  his  ears  with  wool,  and  gives 
the  most  careful  attention  to  his  toilet, 
in  the  vain  hope  of  persuading-  the  maiden 
lad3'  to  become  his  wife ;  but  when  she 
refuses  him,  peremptorily,  lie  goes  to 
pieces  like  the  Deacon's  one  horse  shaj'. 
Madame  Cormon,  though  she  is  an  old 
maid,  is  good,  simple,  and  hot-blooded, 
and  longs  ardently  for  a  husband  ;  but 
she  is  so  absurdly  ignorant  that  she 
becomes  utterly  distrustful  of  mankind, 
and  defeats  her  own  purpose  bj-  her 
suspicion. 

An  old  maid  of  another  sort  appears  in 
"The  Cabinet  of  Antiques."  This  lady 
is  a  patrician  who  has  remained  single  in 
order  to  devote  herself  to  the  orphan  son 
of  her  brother ;  but  the  young  scapegrace 
commits  iovgery,  is  arrested  at  Alengon, 
where  the  scene  of  the  storj^  is  laid.  An 
old  notary  again  saves  the  honor  of  the 
family,  and  the  French  sj^stem  of  juris- 
diction is  again  gone  into  at  much  too 
great  length.  A  fact  which  Balzac  al- 
ways delighted  to  dwell  upon;  namely, 
that  it  made  very  little  difference  to  a 
lawyer  whether  his  client  was  guilty  or 
innocent,  is  brought  out.  In  this  case 
the  guilt  or  innocence  of  tlie  party  ac- 
cused had  very  little  to  do  with  his  fate, 
the  influence  he  was  able  to  bring  to  bear 
deciding  it. 

A  thing  of  real  beauty  is  "  The  Lilj^  of 
the  Valley."  Its  author  pronounces  it 
"  one  of  the  most  highly  finished  stones 
of  the  edifice."  It  deals  with  the  old 
struggle  between  love  and  duty  in  the 
breast  of  a  beautiful  but  unhappy  woman. 
Duty  and  virtue  are  ever  victorious,  al- 
though death  finallj'  enables  the  heroine 
to  triumph.  Madame  de  Mortsauf  is  a 
model  of  purity,  though  a  conjugal  mar- 


tyr,  and    her    portrait  is   painted  with 
pathos  and  power. 

We  now  reach  the  "  Lost  Illusions," 
2)resented  in  two  sub-divisions.  It  is  the 
longest,  the  most  varied,  and  most  com- 
pletely' elaborated  work  from  Balzac's 
jicn.  Indeed,  several  critics  have  spoken 
of  it  as  an  epitome  of  the  entire  "Human 
Comedy."  The  four  longest  stories  as- 
sociated under  this  head  would  make  a 
library'  in  themselves.  Briefly,  this  is  the 
story  of  Lucien,  a  poet  of  Angouleme, 
whose  Bunthorn-like  genius  and  manly 
beauty  are  supported  by  the  money  of  his 
sister  Eve,  the  daughter  of  a  poor  widow 
but  the  wife  of  a  rich  printer,  named 
David.  Sechard,  David's  father,  was  nn 
ignorant,  drunken,  miserly  old  publisher, 
who  sold  his  business  to  his  son,  a  talent- 
ed, modest  and  amiable  young  man,  on 
very  harsh  terms.  David  believes  in  Lu- 
cien, foresees  his  greatness  and  willingly 
assists  in  the  scheme  to  exploit  him.  The 
young  and  handsome  poet  is  patronized  by 
Madame  de  Bargeton,  a  great  ladj'  of  the 
neighborhood,  who  is  naturally  bored  by 
the  country  folk  and  longs  for  some  idol 
upon  which  to  lavish  her  enthusiasm.  The 
relations  between  the  poet  and  the  lady 
are  wholly  proper ;  but  the  country  people 
are  censorious  and  start  a  scandal.  One 
of  the  distinguished  citizens,  overheard  by 
the  husband  of  madame,  is  called  out  and 
shot  in  a  duel.  After  this,  of  course,  the 
atmosphere  becomes  too  warm  for  the 
great  lady,  and  she  removes  to  her  house 
in  Paris,  taking  the  poet  witli  her.  Thus 
the  scene  shifts  from  the  country  to  the 
French  metropolis.  The  disillusionment 
of  the  poet  now  begins.  He  finds  that 
Madame  de  Bargeton  is  not  what  his 
fancy  had  painted  her.  Though  an  ex- 
ceedingly proper  and  modest  woman  in 
the  country,  in  the  city  she  develops  en- 
tirely different  phases  of  character.  An 
old  flame  of  hers  soon  separates  her  from 
Lucien.  The  poet  observes  that  his  ideal 
woman  is  lean,  faded  and  gawky ;  the 
lady  likewise  discovers  that  her  ideal 
genius  is  awkward,  ill-bred  and  badly 
dressed.  Thrown  overboard  by  his  pa- 
troness, the  luckless  poet  finds  it  impos- 
sible to  secure  a  publisher  for  his  sonnets. 


IXTRODUCTION. 


11 


He  tries  several  methods  of  earning-  a  liv- 
ing- when  he  finds  that  poetry  will  not 
secure  it  for  liim,  and,  among  others, 
journalism.  The  way  in  which  Balzac 
writes  about  Parisian  journalism  is 
enough  to  sicken  any  reader  with  it  as 
a  vocation.  Disclosures  in  1892  reg-ard- 
ing  tlie  Panama  Canal  scandal  indicate 
that  the  Paris  press  is  as  corrupt  to-day 
as  in  Balzac's  time.  Balzac  had  pre- 
tended to  edit  one  or  two  papers  and 
magazines,  but  it  is  very  doubtful  if  he 
ever  did  any  executive  newspaper  work. 
He  had  no  scruples  about  monej'-get- 
ting,  and,  like  many  another  amateur  in 
journalism  and  law,  saw  a  rich  field  for 
the  blackmailer's  art.  According-  to  Bal- 
zac, any  man  who  ventured  into  the  news- 
paper profession  in  Paris  was  utterh'  lost 
to  honor,  honesty  and  self-respect.  Im- 
mediatel}'  Lucien  has  attained  a  footing- 
on  a  newspaper,  he  starts  out  as  a  black- 
mailer and  begins  to  lampoon  his  former 
patroness  and  Monsieur  Chatelet,  her  new 
infatuation.  He  flirts  with  the  g-reat  act- 
resses of  the  day,  and  cuts  his  former  pro- 
tector in  public ;  but  his  rise  is  like  the 
flight  of  a  rocket :  he  soars  for  a  time 
among  the  clouds  of  adulation  and  then 
falls  like  a  stick,  extinguished.  What 
else  was  to  have  been  expected  ?  It  is 
the  same  way  in  America.  Lucien  loses 
his  footing-  in  the  newspaper  business,  as 
he  deserves  to,  is  insulted  by  a  former 
friend,  challenges  him  and  is  despei'ately 
wounded  in  a  duel ;  he  suffers  from  penur3- 
and  despair,  and  finally  returns  to  Ang-ou- 
leme  on  foot.  The  love  story  of  David 
and  Eve,  which  is  used  to  g-arnish  the 
^eater  tale,  is  far  more  attractive  than 
that  of  Lucien.  It  is  impossible  to  out- 
line it,  but  Lucien  is  the  cause  of  much 
suffering-  to  both  of  them,  and  eventu- 
ally brings  financial  ruin  upon  David, 
his  brother-in-law.  It  is  impossible,  of 
course,  to  give  any  idea  of  the  life  and 
soul  which  Balzac  imparts  to  this  bare 
outline.  The  w^eakness  of  Lucien,  the  un- 
failing- love  of  Eve,  the  sincei'C  devotion 
of  David,  the  miserly  craftiness  of  the 
old  printer,  and  the  frivolity  of  Madame 
de  Bargeton,  supply  the  human  intei'est  in 
this  work. 


In  the  two  books  that  follow,  and  which 
are  utterly  unworthy  of  Balzac,  we  find 
one  of  the  greatest  characters  in  "The 
Human  Comedj*."  We  refer  to  "The 
terrible  A^autrin."  He  is  the  antithesis 
in  French  fiction  of  Jean  Valgean,  the 
hero  of  "  Les  Miserables,"  the  master- 
piece of  Victor  Hugo.  Vautrin,  known 
under  several  aliases,  is  a  convict  who 
masquerades  in  the  guise  of  a  priest. 
He  crosses  the  plane  of  several  other 
novels  in  the  series,  memorable  among 
which  is  "Pere  Goriot."  This  terrible 
character  is  really  the  hero  of  the  two 
books  that  follow  "  Lost  Illusions."  Fall- 
ing into  the  hands  of  the  police  eventually-, 
Vautrin  chooses  to  serve  the  law  against 
which  he  can  no  longer  successfully  con- 
tend, and  instead  of  the  chief  of  a  gang 
of  robbers  he  becomes  the  Chief  of  Police. 
We  can  imagine  how  Balzac  must  have 
chuckled  to  himself,  and  how  his  chubby 
cheeks  must  have  shaken  as  he  lunged  at 
the  municipality  with  such  a  master-stroke 
of  irony  ! 

A  splendid  opportunitj'  to  utilize  the 
services  of  Vautrin  occurs  in  "  The  His- 
tory of  the  Thirteen,"  which  demonstrates 
the  possibHitj'  of  a  cabal  of  men  carrying 
out  their  own  purposes  in  utter  defiance 
of  the  law.  New  York  under  the  fast  set 
led  by  Jim  Fisk  between  the  j-ears  1865 
and  1871  (when  he  was  killed)  furnishes 
a  picture  quite  similar  in  color  to  that  in 
"  The  Girl  with  the  Golden  Eyes."  New 
Yorkers  who  had  shuddered  at  the  wan- 
tonness and  dissipation  of  the  Pai'isians, 
revolted  against  that  era  and  rejoiced 
that  the  fall  of  its  figure-head  ended. the 
orgies  of  the  period. 

Of  the  Scenes  from  Parisian,  or  City, 
Life,  we  have  reprinted  enough  to  show 
their  wonderful  beauty  and  variety.  This 
division  of  the  work  sounds  every  depth 
of  social  horror,  exalts  e\erj^  human 
virtue,  and  deals  in  an  utterly'  reckless, 
though  very  attractive,  manner  with  the 
whims,  ambitions,  malice  and  sordidness 
of  humanity.  As  a  critic  of  mankiud  Bal- 
zac is  remorseless  !  When  a  woman  was 
bad  in  Balzac's  eyes,  she  was  capable  of 
anything  ;  no  meanness  that  brought  re- 
venge, no  treachery  that  deprived  a  rival 


12 


INTRODUCTION. 


of  a  lover,  no  depravity  that  insured  social 
success  was  to  be  hesitated  at.  "  Pere 
Goriot"  (or  "Old  Pop  Goriot,"  as  the 
arg-ot  of  the  cheap  boarding--house  where 
he  lived  would  have  had  it.)  was  the  in- 
carnation of  fatherhood,  as  understood 
by  the  Balzacian  mind.  His  might  be 
another  name  for  Lear,  moving-  in  a  lower 
ethical  atmosphere,  actuated  by  the  same 
paternal  love  and  without  personal  ambi- 
tion. This  story,  strangely  enough,  was 
given  a  wrong  place  in  the  series  by  the 
author,  because  in  the  point  of  date  we 
make  therein  our  first  acquaintance  with 
Vautrin ;  we  also  meet  Dr.  Bianchon, 
the  noble  -  hearted  physician,  and  M. 
Kastignac.  Some  of  these  names  have 
been  encountered  through  many  of  the 
preceding  stories.  At  least,  this  book 
should  have  been  placed  by  Balzac  before 
the  "Lost  Illusions."  Having  despoiled 
himself  of  all  his  property  for  the  benefit 
of  his  two  worthless  daughters,  poor  old 
Goriot  is  left  to  die  tilone  in  a  garret. 
The  way  in  which  Balzac  wrings  the 
chords  of  human  sympathy  for  the  friend- 
k^ss  old  man  is  even  more  masterly  than 
Shakespeare's  treatment  of  the  same  situa- 
tion under  the  names  of  Lear,  Began,  and 
Goneril.  There  is  no  Cordelia  in  this  tale. 
We  reprint  "  Cesar  Birotteau,"  a 
story  of  the  champion  of  shop-keeping 
honor.  The  full  title  of  this  very  re- 
markable story  is  "The  Grandeur  and 
the  Decadence  of  Cesar  Birotteau."  Bir- 
otteau was  a  manufacturer  of  jjerfumery 
and  rose  to  great  wealth,  the  climax  of 
his  social  elevation  being  a  ball,  which  is 
minutely  described ;  after  that  event  his 
descent  to  penury  and  utter  wretchedness 
follow  fast  and  fearfully.  The  mental 
sutfej-ings  that  the  honest  old  tradesman 
endured  are  depicted  with  photographic 
accuracy.  The  book  ends  happily,  how- 
ever, by  the  paj-ment  of  Birotteau"s  debts, 
and  his  resumption  of  active  life.  When 
this  occurs,  his  joj'  is  more  extravagant 
than  was  his  grief.  It  kills  him.  We 
have  included  the  mystery  of  "  Facino 
Cane  "  in  this  class  for  the  same  reason, 
doubtless,  that  Balzac  did — not  because 
it  is  a  Parisian  story  but  merel3-  because 
it  is  related  in  a  cafe  of  that  city.    Out 


the  noxious  quagmire  of  the  "Cousin 
Betty"  (which  we  dare  not  reproduce) 
appears  the  flg'ure  of  a  true  and  much- 
abused  wife,  but  the  rest  of  the  tale,  al- 
though one  of  the  most  popular  in  France, 
exposes  the  social  corruptions  as  merci- 
lessly as  does  Zola  in  "  La  Teri-e." 

"Cousin  Pons"  has  been  frequently, 
translated  ;  it  is  moral  and  quite  interest- 
ing. We  have  included  it  in  these  vol- 
umes among  the  Scenes  from  Private  Life 
because  of  several  characters  therein  who 
make  their  fii-ct  appearance  in  this  story. 

"A  Mysterious  Affair," with  which  the 
Scenes  in  Political  Life  open,  contains  one 
of  Balzac's  most  remarkable  heroines, 
Laui'ence  de  Cinq  Cygne.  Not  only  is  she 
beautiful  but  she  is  courageous.  Though 
thoroughly  womanly  in  her  heroism,  she 
is  masculine  in  her  endui-ance.  She  is  a 
sort  of  Jean  d'Acre  in  society.  The  whole 
■^tory  is  decidedly  tragic,  but  full  of  pathos 
rather  than  hori'or.  In  "  The  Wrong 
Side  of  Contemporaneous  History  "  Bal- 
zac again  exalts  virtue — "plain  virtue," 
as  he  calls  it — in  the  person  of  Mademoi- 
selle de  Chanterie,  in  many  ways  the  most 
sublime  woman  in  "The  Human  Comedy. " 
Unliappy  as  a  wife,  wretched  as  a  mother, 
persecuted  by  everybody,  apparently  for- 
gotten by  God,  she  never  despairs  of  man 
or  doubts  the  Almighty ;  she  sinks  her 
own  miserj'  in  the  divine  mission  of  char- 
ity. "  Z.  Marcas  "  is  a  curious  little  story, 
the  chief  interest  in  which  to  Americans 
will  grow  out  of  the  fact  that  Balzac  dis- 
covered the  name  on  a  sign  during  one 
of  his  midnight  walks,  rushed  home  and 
wrote  the  story  at  one  sitting  out  of  the 
phantasmagoria  that  the  name  had  con- 
jured up. 

The  Scenes  from  Militars-  Life,  which 
we  reprint  in  full,  consist  of  one  splendid 
story  and  a  fragment.  Balzac's  declared 
intention  to  complete  that  portion  of  his 
woi'k  was  unfortunately  prevented  by 
death.  "  Les  Chouans  "  is  a  story  of  the 
revolution  in  the  Vendee,  and  is  filled  with 
incidents  of  ^that  semi-barbaric  struggle. 
We  reprint  Mr.  George  Saintsbury's  mas- 
terly translation.  The  blind  devotion  of 
the  ignorant  but  frantically  loyal  peas- 
ants is  wonderfully  portrayed,  together 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


with  the  chivalrous  heroism  of  the  Royal- 
ist chieftain.  When  we  remember  that 
Balzac  was  a  Monarchist  who  would  have 
enjoyed  tlie  era  of  Louis  XIV.,  we  cannot 
wonder  at  his  frequent  exultation  of  the 
Royalists  at  the  expense  of  the  Repub- 
licans. A  passionate  and  exciting-  love 
intrigue  is  interwoven  with  the  Vendean 
war,  which  in  many  ways  relieves  it  of 
its  horrors.  The  "  Passion  in  the  Desert " 
is  a  mere  fragment,  and  we  reprint  it  only 
on  account  of  its  weirdness  and  its  abso- 
lute originalitj'.  Balzac  refers  to  the 
storj'  as  that  of  "  A  Frenchman  in 
Egypt."  We  have  inserted  "Doomed 
to  Live,"  an  episode  of  the  Peninsular 
War,  in  this  division. 

Li  the  Scenes  of  Countrj'-  Life,  which, 
Balzac  declares,  represent  the  evening 
of  life,  we  have  three  tales,  of  which 
"The  Country  Doctor"  is  the  first.  It 
is  really  a  long  and  rather  dull  essay  on 
philanthrop3'  and  good  local  government, 
illustrated  by  the  historj'^  of  the  conver- 
sion of  a  wretched  village  into  a  busy, 
thriving  and  populous  distinct  bj'  the 
benevolence  and  energy  of  the  country 
doctor.  "The  Cure  of  the  Village"  is 
somewhat  similar  in  idea  but  more  com- 
plicated, and  is  rendered  verj' readable  by 
the  introduction  of  a  mysterious  crime. 
"The  Peasantry,"  which  completes  the 
Scenes  of  Country  Life,  is  in  many  ways 
remarkable.  We  have  reprinted  it  in  full. 
A  very  rich  landed  proprietor,  the  Count 
Montcornet,  who  dwells  upon  an  extensive 
estate,  has  incurred  the  jealousy  of  the 
surrounding  peasantry.  Thej'  unite  in  a 
concerted  plot  to  drive  hiui  out  of  their 
counti'y  and  to  secure  the  sub-division  of 
his  immense  domain.  The  count  is  an 
old  soldier  of  Napoleon,  and,  as  may  be 
imagined,  is  not  disposed  to  surrender 
readily.  He  makes  a  long  and  gallant 
fight,  in  which  he  is  always  in  the  right, 
but  the  insidious  and  secret  methods  em- 
ployed by  his  antagonists  are  such  that 
he  is  finally  defeated,  robbed  and  cast 
out  upon  the  world  a  wanderer.  The 
peasantry  stop  at  no  means  to  secure 
their  ends.  The  insatiable  greed  of  the 
richer  class  of  peasants  is  drawn  with 
an  etcher's  art.     So  graphic  is  the  narra- 


tive that  it  suggests  in  the  reader's  mind 
the  picture  of  the  count  in  the  center  of 
a  great  web,  surrounded  by  a  host  of  vi- 
cious and  remorseless  spiders  intent  upon 
his  destruction.  M.  Gaboreau  imitated 
this  story  in  "La  Clique  d'Or."  There 
is  more  instruction  in  "  The  Peasantry  " 
than  in  anj'  other  one  volume  in  "  The 
Human  Comedy."  It  was  the  author's 
last  work,  and  is  really  the  climax  of  his 
scheme. 

The  Philosophical  and  Analytical  studies 
that  follow  are  mere  epilogues.  "  The 
Bit  of  Ass's  Skin  "  has  been  before  re- 
ferred to.  It  is  a  story  of  the  Poe  order, 
something  like  this:  —  A  young  man, 
about  to  commit  suicide,  becomes  pos- 
sessed of  a  talisman  that  will  gratify 
every  wish,  but  at  each  exercise  of  de- 
sire the  piece  of  ass's  skin,  which  serves 
as  a  talisman,  contracts,  and  as  it  shrinks 
so  does  his  life.  He  accepts  the  conditions 
very  much  as  Faust  made  his  compact 
with  the  devil.  Being  on  the  verge  of 
the  grave,  anjiihing  that  bettered  his 
condition  seemed  welcome.  The  talis- 
man proves  to  be  a  gift  from  the  Evil 
One,  and  its  recipient  goes  the  same  way 
as  his  famous  predecessor  in  the  realm  of 
fiction.  He  grows  to  love  life,  and  as  the 
shagreen  shrinks  smaller  and  smaller  he 
struggles  against  his  fate,  like  a  poor 
wretch  strapped  in  the  electric  chair  at 
Sing  Sing.  The  fact  that  the  story  is  an 
impossibility  condemns  it  as  a  part  of 
"The  Human  Comedy."  The  "Rtv 
searches  into  the  Absolute"  errs  on  the 
opposite  side  of  simplicity  and  is  wanting 
in  romantic  interest.  It  is  full  of  meta- 
physics, and  deals  with  a  search  for  the 
philosopher's  stone.  The  book  has  often 
been  translated  and  is  so  well  known  that 
we  do  not  feel  justified  in  reproducing  it  in 
these  volumes.  Marguerite  Claes,  daugh- 
ter of  the  monomaniac,  is  a  fine  specimen 
of  filial  love.  We  reprint  four  of  the 
shorter  stories  in  this  sub-division,  though 
we  have  taken  the  liberty  of  inserting 
them  among  the  six  other  divisions. 
"Louis  Lambert"  is  a  Swedenborgian 
rhapsody,  chiefly  interesting  as  an  ex- 
ample of  Balzac's  varied  study  and  wide 
range  of  I'eading. 


14 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  Analytical  studies  deal  with  the 
miseries  of  married  life,  and  they  are 
so  un-American  in  treatment  that  they 
would  have  no  interest  whatever  to  our 
readers.  Balzac  regarded  the  marriage 
state  as  one  of  constant  antagonism,  and 
believed  that  the  feud  always  existed,  open 
or  hidden.  In  America,  marriage  is  re- 
garded as  a  sacred  and  beautiful  institu- 
tion, sanctioned  of  God  and  blessed  by 
man,  and  we  cannot  understand  the 
phases  of  French  life  in  which  love- 
matches  are  rare  and  marriage  is  a 
matter  of  convenience  and  arbitration. 

In  the  running  review,  which  we  have 
here  concluded,  of  Balzac's  Comedy  of 
Human  Life,  we  believe  we  have  shown 
the  stupendous  scope  of  the  work,  the 
great  variety  of  topics  and  characters 
treated,  and  have,  in  a  measure,  at  least, 
combated  the  prevalent  opinion  that  Bal- 
zac was  essentially  an  immoral  writer. 
He  found  French  society  in  a  very  dis- 
organized condition,  and  he  wrote  of  it 
as  he  found  it.  Like  a  Napoleon  in  the 
field  of  letters,  he  rose  from  the  social 


disintegration  that  followed  the  Revo- 
lution, and  he  described  the  French 
people  as  they  w'ere,  always  leaning  to 
the  side  of  monarchy  because  he  sincerely 
believed  that  the  stronger  the  govern- 
ment the  more  secure  the  individual.  He 
was  an  industrious  workman  and,  as  one 
of  his  most  severe  critics  said  of  him, 
"was  too  laborious  a  slave  to  the  pen. 
to  find   time  to  be  personally  immoral." 

The  ti'anslations  have  been  made  by 
Mr.  George  Saintsbury,  the  distinguished 
English  scholar  and  critic  ;  E.  P.  Robins, 
Mrs.  Frederick  M.  Dey,  Mrs.  B.  M.  Sher- 
man, and  the  editor. 

The  publisher  and  editor  of  this  edition 
of  Balzac  take  pride  in  sa^-iiig  that  it  does 
not  contain  a  word  that  can  do  harm, 
and  they  have  great  pleasure  in  bringing 
to  the  acquaintance  of  many  thousand 
American  readers  this  Shakespeare  of 
prose  fiction,  whose  imperishable  name 
will  grow  brighter  with  each  new  century. 

Julius  Chambers. 

New  York,  January  1,  1893. 


THE    AUTHOR'S    LIFE. 


HoNORE  DE  Balzac  was  born  at  Tours 
on  the  20lh  of  May,  1799.  There  was  no 
authority  for  the  aristocratic  de  in  his 
name.  He  inserted  it  himself.  He  was 
a  dreaming  and  solitary  child,  refusing  to 
play  with  his  two  sisters,  and  taking  no 
notice  of  the  toys  that  were  given  him. 
There  was  one  exception ;  he  would  spend 
hours  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy  playing  on  a 
violin,  the  strains  he  produced,  discordant 
to  others,  sounding  to  him  divine  melo- 
dies. This  passion  for  music  he  retained 
all  his  life  ;  two  of  his  philosophic  studies 
on  the  subject,  "Gambara"  and  "Mas- 
similla  Doni,"  are  among  his  most  delicate 
work.  His  faculty  for  reading  showed  it- 
self at  the  age  of  five,  when  he  read  the 
Holy  Scriptures  with  absorbing  interest. 
He  possessed  himself  with  great  rapidity 
of  the  contents  of  every  book  that  fell 
into  his  hands.    Science,  philosophy,  and 


religion  were  his  principal  study,  and  he 
even  read  dictionaries  from  end  to  end. 
He  was  sent  to  the  Oratorian  College 
at  Vendome ;  while  there,  at  the  age  of 
eleven,  he  w^rote  a  treatise  on  the  Will, 
which  his  teacher,  with  the  true  instinct 
of  a  schoolmaster,  burned.  He  would  also 
contrive  to  be  punished  in  the  lock-up,  in 
order  to  devote  himself  at  leisure  to  the 
books  he  preferred.  To  his  reminiscences 
of  these  days  are  due  his  marvelous  pro- 
duction, "  Louis  Lambert."  His  memory 
retained  the  minutest  details,  consequently 
this  excessive  reading  produced  a  sort  of 
congestion  in  an  undeveloped  brain.  At 
the  age  of  fourteen  he  was  apparent]}'  so 
stupefied  that  it  was  necessary  to  remove 
hiui  from  school.  Yet  he  already  had 
glimpses  of  his  futui'e  fame.  "You  will 
see,"  he  once  said  to  his  sisters,  "some 
day  I  shall  be  famous." 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


About  this  time,  in  1813,  the  family  re- 
moved to  Paris,  where  young-  Balzac  was 
sent  to  a  well-known  "pensionnat."  At 
the  age  of  eighteen  he  received  the  diplo- 
mas of  bachelor  and  of  licentiate  of  let- 
ters, and  then  went  through  the  courses 
of  law  at  the  Sorbonne  and  the  College 
of  France,  simultaneously.  Meanwhile, 
in  obedience  to  his  parents,  he  worked  in 
the  office  of  an  advocate,  and  afterward 
of  a  notary. 

As  he  was  completing  his  twenty-first 
year,  his  parents  required  him  to  adopt 
the  profession  of  a  notary' ;  this  he  abso- 
lutely refused  to  do,  declaring  that  he  had 
long  made  up  his  mind  to  be  an  author. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  his  father,  "  that 
in  literature  if  a  man  is  not  a  master  he  is 
a  mere  'hack  '  ?  " 

"  Then  I  will  be  a  master,"  said  he. 

Finding  it  impossible  to  move  him,  his 
parents  returned  to  the  country,  leaving 
him  with  a  very  small  allowance  alone  in 
Paris. 

His  way  of  life  and  his  privations  at  this 
time  are  graphically'  described  in  his  let- 
ters to  his  favorite  sister  Laure,  afterward 
Madame  de  Surville.  His  first  garret  was 
in  the  Rue  de  Lesdiguieres.  He  frequently 
did  not  go  out  for  weeks  at  a  time  farther 
than  the  nearest  grocer,  and  that  only  in 
order  to  buy  coffee,  which  he  consumed 
at  night  while  he  read  or  wrote.  He  had 
scarcely  any  fire,  even  in  winter,  and  very  • 
little  to  eat.  From  the  hard  life  that  he 
led  at  this  time  he  contracted  a  tendency' 
to  violent  attacks  of  toothache,  recurring 
all  through  his  life. 

His  first  literary  production  was  a 
drama  called  "  Cromwell,"  which  he  read 
to  a  company  of  friends ;  they  pronounced 
it  wortliless.  After  this  he  published, 
chiefly  under  fictitious  names,  about  thirty 
novels,  ten  of  which  are  now  included  un- 
der the  title  "Works  of  Youth." 
•  At  the  age  of  twenty-five,  as  his  pen 
did  not  bring  in  sufficient  to  keep  him,  he 
resolved  to  make  enough  by  other  means 
to  enable  him  to  write  as  ho  willed.  He 
borrowed  funds  from  an  old  college  friend, 
and  started  a  publishing  business,  but 
owing  to  lack  of  interest  with  the  book- 
sellers it  failed.     His  friend,  not  discour- 


aged, lent  him  more  money,  and  his 
father,  pleased  that  he  was  starting  on 
another  career,  added  thirtj'  thousand 
francs.  With  this  capital  he  opened  a 
printing-house  in  the  Rue  Marais-Saint- 
Germain,  where  he  set  up  twelve  presses 
and  a  type  foundry.  Under  his  direction 
the  most  assiduous  labor  was  expended 
on  every  part  of  the  establishment.  Soon 
after,  the  severe  laws  of  the  Restoration 
restricting  the  liberty  of  the  press  were 
enacted,  and  ruined  the  undertaking. 

He  was  thus  forced  to  return  to  litera- 
ture, not  only  in  order  to  live,  but  to  pay 
the  debts  which  he  had  contracted  in 
trade.  He  was  overburdened  with  debt 
until  the  last  year  of  his  life.  Among  the 
books  in  his  library  was  one  bound  like 
his  own  works,  bearing  the  title  "La 
Tragedie  Humaine;  "  it  contained  an  ac- 
count of  his  expenditures. 

In  1827  he  published,  under  the  editor- 
ship of  a  kindly  "libraire,"  Monsieur 
Levavasseur,  the  first  book  that  was  well 
received,  "Les  Chouans."  He  now  de- 
voted himself  entirely  to  the  work  of  his 
life — a  history  of  the  manners  of  his  time. 
As  Dante  has  followed  the  development 
of  God's  counsels  in  the  "  Commedia, " 
called  by  posterity  "divine,"  so  Balzac 
has  laboriously  analyzed  the  machinery 
of  human  society  in  his  "  Comedie  Hu- 
manie."  Nor  did  his  literary  work  end 
with  this  vast  idea ;  he  started  at  least 
two  reviews,  was  the  author  of  numerous 
articles,  four  dramas,  and  many  grotesque 
tales  after  the  manner  of  his  great  coun- 
tryman Rabelais.  These  last  are  col- 
lected in  three  volumes  under  the  title  of 
"The  Droll  Stories." 

The  care  and  labor  which  he  expended 
on  his  works  was  immense.  He  wrote 
the  outline  of  his  story  down  the  middle 
of  a  very  wide  sheet  of  paper,  filled  it  in 
both  sides  with  additions,  and  then  sent 
it  to  be  printed.  This  method  he  repeated 
until  he  was  satisfied.  It  is  known  that 
the  proofs  of  one  of  his  stories  ("Pier- 
rette ")  were  thus  corrected  seventeen 
times ;  the  cost  of  correction  amounted  to 
three  or  four  hundred  francs  more  than 
was  realized  by  the  sale  of  the  book.  His 
mode  of  working  was  the  despair  of  the 


16 


INTRODUCTION. 


compositors,  who  used  to  stipulate  in  their 
agreements  that  they  should  never  be 
kept  at  work  on  Monsieur  de  Balzac's 
manuscripts  for  more  than  two  hours  at 
a  time. 

His  characters  were  to  him,  as  they 
become  to  his  readers,  living  realities. 
"  Come,"  said  he  one  day  at  his  sister's 
when  the  conversation  had  turned  on  the 
doings  of  some  acquaintances  or  political 
personages,  "  let  us  now  talk  about  real 
people  and  real  sorrows ;  let  us  talk  of 
'Eugenie  Grandet,'"  and  he  proceeded 
to  discuss  the  lovely  characters  in  "  La 
Comedie  Humaine."  The  number  of  per- 
sons in  that  great  work  amounts  to  five 
thousand,  many  of  them  appearing  or 
referred  to  again  and  again  in  different 
stories. 

In  person  Balzac  was  handsome,  strong, 
and  healthy ;  his  capacity  for  enduring 
fatigue  enormous.  The  portrait  used  in 
this  volume  is  from  the  first  complete 
Paris  edition  of  "  The  Human  Comedy." 
Though  he  was  continually  harassed  by 
bis  creditors,  a  moment  of  joy  made  him 
forget  weeks  of  anxiety.  The  charm  of 
his  personality  and  his  persuasiveness 
were  so  extraordinary  that  he  induced 
men  of  sober  judgment  to  consent  to  the 
wildest  schemes.  These  he  was  perpctu- 
aUj^  occupied  in  inventing  in  order  to  get 
rich  ;  now  it  was  the  finding  of  the  great 
Mogul's  jewel,  now  it  was  a  mine  or  the 
cultivation  of  opium  in  Corsica,  now  it 
was  the  discovery  of  perpetual  motion, 
and  now  a  plan  for  destroying  the  credit 
of  the  German  banking-houses.  It  is  re- 
markable that  two  of  his  schemes  actu- 
TkWy  made  the  fortune  of  persons  to  whom 
he  incautiously  intrusted  them.    He  was 


a  man  easily  deceived  and  incapable  of 
deception. 

In  1834  he  became  a  candidate  for  the 
Academic.  This  enlightened  institution 
rejected  him  Avith  the  excuse  that  his 
affairs  were  not  in  a  flourishing  state. 
There  could  scarcely  be  a  more  startling 
example  of  the  futility  of  State  establish- 
ments for  the  encouragement  of  literature 
or  art. 

The  anecdotes  told  of  Balzac  are  count- 
less. A  recent  volume  entitled  "  An 
Englishman  in  Paris"  is  larded  with 
them.  His  strange  appearance  and  un- 
usual habits  have  made  his  personality 
attractive  and  familiar.  During  the  time 
that  he  was  writing  a  story  he  used  to  go 
to  bed  at  half-past  five,  after  his  dinner, 
and  got  up  at  eleven  or  twelve.  Then, 
clad  in  the  monastic  habit  which  he  had 
adopted  as  a  dressing-gown,  he  wrote 
until  nine  in  the  morning.  When  he  was 
not  writing  he  frequentlj'  spent  the  night 
walking  about  Paris  or  in  the  country, 
just  as  Dickens  walked  about  London  and 
the  Kentish  hills. 

In  the  year  1850  his  dreams  of  wealth 
were  realized  ;  he  married  a  rich  Russian 
lady,  the  Countess  Eva  de  Hanska,  to 
whom  he  had  dedicated  "Pierrette"  ten 
years  before.  But  close  on  the  heels  of 
riches  came  death.  Feeling  his  strength 
fail  him  he  hurried  to  Paris,  and  died 
there  four  months  after  his  marriage,  in 
the  same  year,  1850. 

In  religious  opinion  he  was  a  pro- 
nounced Catholic ;  in  politics  a  depided 
Monarchist. 

This  greatest  writer  of  modern  fiction 
in  any  language  has  been  little  known 
to  Americans. 


SCENES  OF  PRIVATE  LIFE. 


I. 


THE    PURSE. 


There  is  a  delicious  moment  for  minds 
given  to  expansion — the  moment  when 
night  exists  not  yet,  and  day  exists  no 
long-er;  when  the  glimmering  t^\'ilight 
casts  over  every  object  its  soft  tints  or 
its  fantastic  reflections,  and  invites  a 
reverie  vagxiely  wedded  with  the  play  of 
light  and  shade .  The  silence  which  almost 
always  reigns  at  this  instant  renders  it 
more  particularly  dear  to  the  artist,  who, 
collecting  his  thoughts,  places  himself  at 
some  paces  from  his  work,  on  which  he 
can  labor  no  longer,  and  criticises  it, 
growing  enraptured  with  the  subject, 
whose  true  significance  flashes  then  on 
the  inner  eye  of  genius.  He  who  has  not 
stood  pensive  by  the  side  of  a  friend  dur- 
ing this  moment  of  poetic  dreams,  can 
with  difficulty  comprehend  its  unspeaka- 
ble privileges.  Favored  by  the  clair 
obscur,  the  material  means  emploj^ed 
by  art  to  produce  the  effect  of  realities 
disappear  entirely.  If  it  is  a  picture,  the 
personages  represented  seem  to  walk  and 
talk;  the  shade  becomes  shadow,  the 
light  daylight,  the  flesh  is  alive,  the  eyes 
move,  the  blood  rims  in  the  veins,  and  the 
dress  stuffs  ghsten.  Imagination  comes 
to  the  aid  of  every  detail  and  sees  only 
the  beauties  of  the  work.  At  this  hour 
illusion  reigns  despotically,  to  be  dis- 
pelled, perhaps,  by  nightfall.  Is  not 
illusion  a  sort  of  mental  night  which  we 
people  with  visions  ?  Then,  illusion  spreads 
her  wings ;  she  carries  off  the  soul  into  a 
world  of  fancies,  a  world  fertile  in  volup- 
tuous caprices,  and  where  the  artist  for- 


gets the  world  positive,  yesterday  and 
tc-morrow,  the  future,  everything,  even 
to  his  troubles,  hght  and  heavy. 

At  this  magic  hour,  a  j'oung  painter — 
a  man  of  talent,  who  followed  his  art  for 
the  sake  of  art  alone — had  mounted  on  the 
double  ladder  he  made  use  of  to  paint  a 
large,  tall  picture,  almost  finished.  There, 
criticising  and  admiring  himself  in  good 
faith,  floating  on  the  current  of  his 
thoughts,  he  sank  into  one  of  those 
meditations  which  enchant  and  exalt  the 
soul,  caressing  and  consoling  it.  His 
reverie  doubtless  lasted  long.  Night  fell. 
Whether  he  had  intended  to  come  off  the 
ladder,  or  whether  he  had  made  an  im- 
prudent movement,  fancying  himself  on 
the  floor — for  the  result  did  not  permit 
him  to  have  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  cause 
of  his  accident — he  fell.  His  head  struck 
on  a  stool ;  he  lost  consciousness,  and  re- 
mained without  movement  during  a  lapse 
of  time  whose  duration  was  unknown  to 
him.  A  soft  voice  awoke  him  from  the 
species  of  torpor  in  which  he  was  plunged. 
As  soon  as  he  reopened  his  eyes,  the  sight 
of  a  bright  hglit  made  him  quickly  shut 
them  again ;  but  through  the  veil  which 
enveloped  his  senses,  he  could  hear  the 
whispering  of  two  women,  and  feel  two 
young,  two  timid  hands,  on  which  his 
head  reposed.  He  soon  regained  con- 
sciousness, and  was  able  to  perceive,  by 
the  glimmer  of  one  of  those  old  lamps 
called  o  double  courant  d'air,  the  most 
delicious  young  girl's  head  he  had  ever 
seen — one  of  these  heads  which  often  pass 

(17) 


18 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


for  a  caprice  of  the  pencil,  but  which  sud- 
denly realized  for  him  those  theories  of 
ideal  beauty  each  artist  creates  for  him- 
self, and  from  which  he  derives  his  talent. 
The  countenance  of  the  unknown  belonged, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  fine  and  delicate  type 
of  the  school  of  Prudhon,  and  possessed 
also  the  poetry  with  which  Gii'odet  en- 
dows his  fancy  portraits.  The  freshness 
of  the  temples,  the  regularity  of  the  eye- 
brows, the  purity  of  the  outlines,  the 
chastity  strong'lj^  stamped  on  every  feat- 
ure of  this  countenance,  made  of  the  young 
girl  a  perfect  creature.  Her  figure  was 
slight  and  supple ;  the  contour  was  deli- 
cate. Her  dress,  plain  and  clean,  an- 
nounced neither  riches  nor  poverty.  On 
coming  to  himself,  the  painter  expressed 
his  admiration  by  a  look  of  surprise,  and 
murmured  some  confused  thanks.  He 
found  his  forehead  bound  with  a  handker- 
cliief,  and  recognized,  notwithstanding  the 
peculiar  odor  of  an  atelier,  the  strong  smell 
of  ether,  doubtless  used  to  restore  him  from 
his  swoon ;  and  at  length  he  saw  an  old 
woman,  who  looked  like  a  marquise  of 
the  ancien  regime,  and  was  holding  the 
lamp  and  giving  directions  to  the  young 
unknown. 

"  Sir,"  replied  the  young  girl  to  one  of 
the  inquiries  made  by  the  painter  during 
the  moment  in  which  he  was  still  a  prey 
to  all  the  confusion  of  ideas  produced  by 
his  fall,  "  my  mother  and  I  heard  the 
noise  of  your  fall  on  the  floor,  and  we 
thought  we  distinguished  a  groan.  The 
sUence  which  succeeded  alarmed  us,  and 
we  made  haste  up.  Finding  the  key  in 
the  door,  we  fortunately  ventured  in,  and 
found  you  stretched  on  the  ground  with- 
out motion.  My  mother  went  to  get 
everything  necessary  to  make  a  bandage 
and  restore  you.  You  are  wounded  on 
the  forehead — ^there.    Do  you  feel  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  now,"  said  he. 

"Oh,  it  will  be  nothing,"  put  in  the 
old  mother.  "  Your  head,  luckily,  struck 
against  this  model." 

"1  feel  infinitely  better,"  replied  the 
painter.  "  I  only  want  a  cab  to  return 
home.  The  portier  will  go  and  fetch  me 
one." 

He  wanted  to   reiterate  his  thanks  to 


the  two  unknown;  but  at  every  speech 
the  old  lady  interrupted  him  with,  "  Take 
care  you  put  on  some  leeches  to-morrow, 
sir,  or  have  yourself  bled ;  take  some  medi- 
cine; take  care  of  yourself.  Falls  are 
dangerous." 

The  young  girl  glanced  stealthily  at 
the  painter  and  at  the  pictures  in  the 
atelier.  Her  countenance  and  her  looks 
revealed  a  perfect  modesty ;  her  curiosity 
was  rather  absence  of  mind ,  and  her  eyes 
seemed  to  express  that  interest  which 
women  take,  with  such  graceful  impul- 
siveness, in  all  our  misfortunes.  The  two 
unknown  seemed  to  forget  the  painter's 
works  in  the  presence'  of  tlie  painter's 
sufferings.  When  he  had  reassured  them 
as  to  his  state,  they  left,  after  examining 
him  with  a  solicitude  cquallj^  devoid  of 
obtrusivencss  and  familiarity,  without 
asking  anj'  indiscreet  questions,  or  seek- 
ing to  inspire  him  with  a  desire  to  become 
acquainted  with  them.  Their  actions  were 
marked  with  an  exquisite  simplicity  and 
good  taste.  Their  manners,  noble  yet 
simple,  produced  at  first  little  effect  on 
the  painter ;  but  afterward,  when  he 
was  thinking-  over  all  the  circumstances 
of  this  event,  he  was  much  struck  by 
them. 

Oil  arriving  at  the  floor  below  that  on 
which  the  atelier  of  the  painter  was  sit- 
uated, the  old  lady  exclaimed  softly, 
"  Adelaide,  you  have  left  the  door  open." 

"  It  was  to  come  to  my  assistance," 
replied  the  painter,  with  a  smile  of  grati- 
tude. 

"You  came  down  just  now,  mother," 
answered  the  young  girl,  blushing. 

"Shall  we  accompany  you  to  the  bot- 
tom ?  "  said  the  mother  to  the  painter. 
"  The  staircase  is  dark." 

"Thank  you,  madame,  I  am  much 
better."    • 

"  Take  hold  of  the  banister." 

The  two  women  remained  on  the  mat 
to  light  the  young  man,  listening  to  the 
sound  of  his  footsteps. 

In  order  to  explain  how  attractive  and 
unexpected  this  scene  was  to  the  painter, 
we  must  add  that  he  had  been  only  a  few 
days  installed  in  his  atelier  at  the  top  of 
this  house,  situated  in  the  darkest  and 


THE    PURSE. 


19 


muddiest  part  of  the  Rue  de  Suresnes, 
almost  in  front  of  the  Church  of  the 
Madeleine,  a  few  steps  frona  his  apart- 
ments, which  were  in  the  Rue  des 
Champs  Elysees.  The  celebrity  he  had 
acquired  by  his  talents  having  rendered 
him  one  of  the  artists  dearest  to  France, 
he  was  just  getting-  beyond  the  reach  of 
want,  and  enjoying,  to  use  his  own  ex- 
pression, his  last  privations.  Instead  of 
going  to  work  in  one  of  those  ateliers 
situated  near  the  barriers,  whose  moder- 
ate rent  had  formerly  been  in  proportion 
to  the  modesty  of  his  earnings,  he  had 
satisfied  a  wish  of  daily  recurrence  by 
saving  himself  a  long  walk  and  a  loss  of 
time  become  more  precious  than  ever  to 
him. 

Nobody  in  the  world  would  have  in- 
spired more  interest  than  Hippolj'te 
Schinner,  if  he  would  have  consented  to 
make  himself  known  ;  but  he  did  not 
lightly  disclose  the  secrets  of  his  life.  Ho 
was  the  idol  of  a  poor  mother  who  had 
brought  him  up  at  the  price  of  the  hard- 
est privations.  Mademoiselle  Schinner, 
the  daughter  of  an  Alsatian  farmer,  had 
never  been  married.  Her  tender  heart 
had  once  been  cruelly  outraged  \>y  a  rich 
man,  who  did  not  pride  himself  on  any 
great  delicacy  in  his  amours.  The  day  on 
which  this  j'oung  girl,  in  all  the  splendor 
of  her  beauty  and  in  all  the  pride  of  her 
life,  underwent,  at  the  expense  of  her 
heart  and  its  fairest  illusions,  that  disen- 
chantment which  comes  upon  us  so  slowly 
and  yet  so  sharply  (for  we  try  to  post- 
pone as  long  as  possible  our  belief  in  evil, 
and  it  always  seems  to  come  too  suddenly) 
— this  day  was  a  whole  age  of  reflections, 
and  it  was  also  a  day  of  religious  ideas 
and  of  resignation.  She  refused  the 
alms  of  the  man  who  had  deceived  her, 
renounced  the  world,  and  made  her  fault 
her  pride.  She  gave  herself  up  entirely 
to  maternal  love,  seeking  in  that,  instead 
of  the  enjoyments  of  society  to  which  she 
had  bidden  adieu,  all  her  pleasures.  She 
lived  by  her  labor,  accumulating  a  treas- 
ure in  her  son  ;  and  later  on,  one'day,  one 
hour  repaid  her  for  all  the  long  and  slow 
sacrifices  of  her  poverty'.  At  the  last 
Exhibition,  her  son  had  received  the  cross 


of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  The  papers, 
unanimous  in  favor  of  an  unknown  tal- 
ent, resounded  still  with  smcere  praises. 
The  artists  themselves  recognized  Schin- 
ner as  a  master,  and  the  dealers  covered 
his  pictures  with  gold. 

At  five  and  twentj',  Hippolyte  Schin- 
ner, to  whom  his  mother  had  transmitted 
her  woman's  nature,  understood  better 
than  ever  his  position  in  the  world. 
Wishing  to  restore  his  mother  to  the  en- 
joyments of  which  society-  had  so  long 
deprived  her,  he  lived  for  her,  hoping  by 
dint  of  glory  and  fortune  to  see  her,  one 
day,  happy,  rich,  esteemed,  and  sur- 
rounded by  celebrated  men.  Thus,  Schin- 
ner had  chosen  his  friends  from  the  most 
honorable  and  distinguished  men.  Par- 
ticular in  the  choice  of  his  acquaintance, 
he  wished  still  further  to  elevate  his  posi- 
tion, which  his  talent  had  already  raised 
so  high.  Bj'  forcing  him  to  remain  in 
solitude,  the  mother  of  great  ideas,  the 
hard  work  to  which  be  had  been  devoted 
from  his  j'outh  had  allowed  him  to  retain 
the  simple  faith  which  embellishes  the 
first  season  of  our  life.  His  youthful 
mind  was  not  unacquainted  with  anj'  one 
of  the  thousand  forms  of  chastity  which 
make  the  young  man  a  being  apart, 
whose  heart  abounds  in  felicities,  in  poe- 
sies, in  virgin  desires,  weak  in  the  eyes  of 
worn-out  natures,  but  profound  because 
they  are  simple.  He  was  endowed  with 
those  soft  and  polished  mannei's  which 
become  the  mind  so  well,  and  seduce  even 
those  who  cannot  understand  them.  He 
was  well  made.  His  voice,  which  sprang 
from  the  heart,  touched  the  noble  senti- 
ments of  other  hearts,  and  bore  witness 
to  a  true  modesty  by  a  certain  candor  of 
accent.  On  looking  nt  him,  you  felt  your- 
self drawn  toward  him  by  one  of  those 
moral  attractions  which  the  savants,  fort- 
unately, cannot  analyze ;  they  would  find 
in  it  some  phenomenon  of  galvanism,  or 
the  action  of  some  unknown  fluid,  and 
would  regulate  our  sentiments  by  the 
proportions  of  oxygen  and  electricity-. 
These  details  will  perhaps  enable  people 
of  a  bold  character,  and  men  famed  for 
their  neckties,  to  understand  why,  during 
the  absence  of  the  portier,  whom  he  had 


20 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


sent  to  the  bottom  of  the  Rue  de  la  Mad- 
eleine for  a  cab,  Hippolj'te  Schinner  did 
not  ask  a  sing-le  question  of  the  portiere 
about  the  two  persons  who  had  shown 
him  so  much  good  nature.  But,  although 
he  only  answered  "  Yes  "  and  "  No  "  to 
the  questions,  natural  in  such  a  case, 
which  were  asked  him  by  this  woman 
about  his  accident  and  the  friendly  inter- 
ference of  the  lodgers  who  occupied  the 
fourth  floor,  he  could  not  prevent  her 
from  obeying  the  instinct  of  a  porter; 
she  would  talk  to  him  about  the  two  un- 
known, in  the  interests  of  her  policy,  and 
according  to  the  subterranean  judgment 
of  her  lodge. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  she,  "  it  was,  no  doubt, 
Mademoiselle  Leseigneur  and  her  mother, 
who  have  been  living  here  four  years. 
We  don't  know  yet  what  these  ladies  are. 
In  the  morning,  an  old  charwoman,  who 
is  as  deaf  and  talks  as  much  as  a  stone 
wall,  comes  to  do  for  them  up  to  twelve 
o'clock ;  in  the  evening,  two  or  three  old 
gentlemen,  decorated*  like  you,  sir — and 
one  of  them  has  got  his  carriage  and 
servants,  and  is  worth  sixty  thousand 
francs  a  year,  they  say — come  to  see 
them,  and  sometimes  stop  very  late. 
Altogether  they  are  very  quiet  tenants, 
like  you,  sir ;  and,  besides,  they  are  eco- 
nomical, and  live  on  almost  nothing. 
Directly  a  letter  comes,  they  pay  for  it. 
It's  queer,  sir,  that  the  mother  goes  by 
a  different  name  to  the  daughter.  Ah  ! 
when  they  go  to  the  Tuileries,  mademoi- 
selle is  very  smart,  and  never  goes  out 
without  being  followed  by  the  young  fel- 
lows; but  she  shuts  the  door  in  their  face, 
and  quite  right  too.  The  landlord  would 
not  allow—" 

The  cab  came  up  ;  Hippolyte  heard  no 
more,  and  returned  home.  His  mother, 
to  whom  he  related  his  adventure,  re- 
dressed his  wound,  and  did  not  allow  him 
to  go  to  his  atelier  the  next  day.  After 
a  consultation,  divers  prescriptions  were 
given,  and  Hippolyte  remained  three  days 
in  the  house.  During  this  seclusion,  his 
unoccupied    imagination    reproduced    in 

*  Decore — wearing  tlie  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  or  some  other  order. 


lively  colors,  and,  as  it  were,  in  frag- 
ments, the  detaUs  of  the  scene  which 
followed  his  fainting.  The  profile  of  the 
young  girl  stood  out  strongly  on  the 
background  of  his  inner  vision.  He  saw 
the  withered  face  of  the  mother,  or  felt 
again  the  hands  of  Adelaide ;  he  recalled 
a  gesture  which  had  not  struck  him  at 
first,  but  whose  exquisite  grace  was  thrown 
into  relief  by  recollection  ;  then  an  atti- 
tude, or  the  tone  of  a  melodious  voice 
embeUished  by  the  perspective  of  mem- 
orj^,  suddenly  reappeared  like  an  object 
which,  after  sinking  to  the  bottom  of  the 
water,  returns  to  the  surface.  And  so, 
the  first  day  he  could  resume  work,  he 
returned  earlier  to  the  atelier ;  but  the 
visit  he  was  incontestibly  entitled  to  pay 
his  neighbors  was  the  true  cause  of  his 
haste.  He  had  already  forgotten  his 
half-painted  picture.  At  the  moment 
when  passion  throws  off  its  swaddling 
clothes,  it  falls  into  those  inexpressible 
pleasures  which  those  who  have  loved 
can  understand.  Thus,  some  people  will 
know  why  the  painter  slowly  mounted 
the  stairs  of  the  fourth  floor,  and  will  be 
in  the  secret  of  the  palpitations  which 
rapidly  succeeded  each  other  in  his  heart, 
the  moment  he  saw  the  brown  door  of 
the  modest  apartments  inhabited  by 
Mademoiselle  Leseigneur.  This  young 
girl,  who  did  not  bear  the  name  of  her 
mother,  had  awoke  a  thousand  sym- 
pathies in  the  breast  of  the  young 
painter ;  he  tried  to  see  a  similarity  of 
position  between  her  and  himself,  and 
endowed  her  with  the  misfortunes  of  his 
own  origin. 

Even  while  at  work,  Hippolyte  gave 
himself  up  very  complacently  to  thoughts 
of  love,  and  made  a  great  deal  of  noise  to 
compel  the  two  ladies  to  think  about  him 
as  he  was  thinking  of  them.  He  stayed 
very  late  at  the  atelier,  dined  there,  and 
then,  about  seven  o'clock,  went  down  to 
see  his  neighbors. 

No  painter  of  manners  has  dared  to 
initiate  us,  perhaps  from  modesty,  into 
the  really  curious  interiors  of  certain 
Parisian  existences  —  into  the  secrets  of 
those  dwellings  from  which  issue  such 
fresh  and  elegant  toilets,  such  briUiant 


THE    PURSE. 


women,  who,  rich  out  of  doors,  betray  on 
all  sides  at  home  the  signs  of  an  equivocal 
fortune.  If  the  picture  is  here  too  can- 
didly drawn,  if  you  find  it  too  much  spun 
out,  do  not  accuse  the  description  wliich 
is,  so  to  speak,  incorporated  with  the 
story ;  for  the  aspect  of  the  apartments 
inhabited  by  his  two  neighbors  had  a 
great  deal  of  influence  on  the  sentiments 
and  hopes  of  Hippolyte  Schinner. 

The  house  belonged  to  one  of  those 
landlords  in  whom  there  exists  a  pro- 
found horror  of  repairs  and  embellish- 
ments, one  of  those  men  who  consider 
tlieir  position  of  a  Parisian  landlord  as 
a  trade.  In  the  great  chain  of  moral 
species,  these  people  hold  a  middle  place 
between  the  miser  and  the  usurer.  Opti- 
mists by  calculation,  they  are  all  faithful 
to  the  statu  quo  of  Austria.  If  you  talk 
about  moving  a  cupboard  or  a  door,  or 
opening  the  most  necessary  of  ventilators, 
their  ej-es  sparkle,  their  bile  is  stirred  ui>, 
they  rear  hke  frightened  horses.  When 
the  wind  blows  down  some  of  their  chim- 
ney-pots, they  fall  ill,  and  abstain  from 
going  to  the  Gymnase  or  the  Porte  St. 
Martin  on  account  of  repairs.  Hippol_>i;e, 
who,  on  account  of  certain  embelUsh- 
nients  to  be  made  in  his  atelier,  had  had 
gratis  a  comic  scene  with  the  Sieur  Moli- 
neux,  was  not  astonished  at  the  dark  and 
greasy  shades,  the  oily  tints,  the  spots, 
and  other  disagreeable  accessories  which 
decorated  tlie  wooden  fittings.  Besides, 
these  stigmas  of  poverty  are  not  without 
poetry  in  the  eyes  of  an  artist. 

Mademoiselle  Leseigneur  came  herself 
to  open  the  door.  On  recognizing  the 
young  painter,  she  bowed  to  him  ;  and  at 
the  same  time,  with  Parisian  dexterity 
and  the  presence  of  mind  given  by  pride, 
she  turned  to  close  the  door  of  a  glazed 
pai'tition,  tlirough  which  Hippolyte  might 
have  caught  sight  of  some  linen  hanging 
on  the  ropes  above  the  economical  stove, 
an  old  folding-bed,  the  braise,  the  coals, 
the  flat-irons,  the  filter,  the  crockery,  and 
all  the  utensils  peculiar  to  small  establish- 
ments. Tolerably  clean  muslin  curtains 
carefully  concealed  this  capharnaum — a 
word  used  to  designate  familiarly  these 
species  of  laboratories — badly  lighted  be- 


sides by  a  borrowed  light  from  a  neigh- 
boring courtyard.  With  the  rapid  glance 
of  an  artist,  Hippolji;e  perceived  the  des- 
tination, the  fiu'niture,  the  general  effect, 
and  the  state  of  this  fli'st  room  cut  in  two. 
The  honorable  part,  which  served  at  once 
as  antechamber  and  dining-room,  was 
papered  with  an  old  "aurora-colored" 
paper,  vnth  a  velvet  border,  no  doubt 
manufactured  by  Reveillon,  the  holes  and 
spots  in  which  had  been  carefully  hidden 
v>'ith  wafers.  Prints,  representing  the 
battles  of  Alexander  by  Lebrun,  but  in 
worn  -  out  gilt  frames,  symmetrically 
adorned  the  walls.  In  the  middle  of 
this  room  was  a  solid  mahogany  table, 
of  old-fashioned  shape,  and  worn  at  the 
edges.  A  small  stove,  whose  upright, 
unbent  pipe  was  scarcely  perceptible, 
stood  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  wliich  was 
turned  into  a  cupboard.  By  an  odd  con- 
trast, the  chairs  displayed  some  vestiges 
of  past  splendor;  they  were  of  car%-ed 
mahogany,  but  the  red  morocco  of  the 
seat,  the  gilt  nails,  and  gimp  showed 
scars  as  numerous  as  those  of  a  sergeant 
of  the  Old  Guard.  This  room  served  as 
a  museum  for  certain  things  which  are 
only  met  with  in  these  sorts  of  amphibious 
households,  objects  without  a  name,  par- 
taking at  once  of  luxury  and  poverty. 

Among  other  curiosities,  Hippol^'te  re- 
marked a  magnificently  ornamental  tele- 
scope, hanging  above  the  little  greenish 
glass  which  decorated  the  chimney-.  To 
match  this  strange  piece  of  furniture, 
there  was  a  shabby  buffet,  pointed  like 
mahogany — the  wood  of  all  others  most 
difficult  to  imitate — between  the  chimney 
and  tlie  partition.  But  the  red  *  and 
slippery  floor,  the  little  bits  of  shabby 
carpet  placed  before  the  chairs,  the  furni- 
ture, everything,  shone  with  that  labori- 
ous cleanliness  which  lends  a  false  luster 
to  old  things,  while  showing  up  still  more 
strongly  their  defects,  their  age,  and  long 
service.  There  reigned  in  this  room  an 
indefinable  odor,  resulting  from  the  ex- 
halations of  the  capharnaxim ,  mixed  with 

*  In  the  old-fashioned  houses  of  Paris  the  floors 
were  sometimes  of  red  tiles,  and  never  carpeted 
all  over. 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


the  vapors  of  the  diningr-room  and  the 
staircase,  although  the  window  was  left 
open  and  the  street  air  stirred  the  muslin 
curtains,  which  were  carefully  drawn  in 
order  to  hide  the  embrasure,  where  pre- 
ceding tenants  had  left  signs  of  their 
presence  in  divers  incrustations  or  spe- 
cies of  domestic  frescoes. 

Adelaide  quickly  opened  the  door  of 
the  other  room,  into  which  she  intro- 
duced the  painter  with  a  certain  pleas- 
ure. Hii)polyte,  who  had  formerly  seen 
in  liis  mother's  time  the  same  signs  of 
indigence,  remarked  them  with  the  singu- 
lar vivacity  which  characterizes  the  first 
acquisitions  of  memor^^  and  entered,  far 
better  than  another  could  have  done,  into 
the  details  of  this  existence.  On  recog- 
nizing the  familiar  objects  of  his  infancy, 
this  good  young  man  felt  neither  con- 
tempt for  this  hidden  misery,  nor  pride 
in  the  luxui-y  he  had  just  won  for  his 
mother. 

"  Well,  sir,  I  hope  yon  do  not  feel  the 
effects  of  your  fall,"  said  the  old  mother, 
rising  from  an  old-fashioned  easy-chair 
placed  at  the  corner  of  the  chimney,  and 
offering  him  a  seat. 

"  No,  niadame.  I  am  come  to  thank 
you  for  your  kind  offices,  and  particu- 
lai^ly  mademoiselle,  who  heard  me  fall." 

In  making  this  speech,  stamped  with 
the  adorable  stupidity  which  springs 
from  the  first  embarrassment  of  real 
love,  Hippohte  looked  at  the  young 
girl.  Adelaide  was  lighting  the  lamp 
ci  double  courant  d'air,  no  doubt  in 
order  to  render  invisible  a  candle  stuck 
in  a  large  brass  candlestick,  and  orna- 
mented with  some  striking  designs  by 
an  extraordinarj'  g-uttering.  She  bowed 
slightly,  went  to  put  the  candlestick  in 
the  antechamber,  returned  to  place  the 
lamp  on  the  chimney,  and  sat  down  by 
her  mother,  a  little  behind  the  painter, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  look  at  him  at  her 
ease,  while  appearing-  very  much  occu- 
pied with  the  burning  up  of  the  lamp, 
whose  flame,  damped  by  tlie  moisture  of 
a  dull  glass,  sputtered  and  struggled 
with  a  black  and  badlj-  cut  wick.  Seeing 
the  large  glass  which  adorned  the  chim- 
ney, Hippol^'te  quickly  cast  his  eyes  on 


it  to  admire  Adelaide.  Thus,  the  little 
ruse  of  the  young  girl  only  served  to  em- 
barrass them  both. 

Willie  talking  to  Madame  Leseigneur — 
for  Hippolyte  gave  her  this-  name  at  all 
hazards — he  examined  the  drawing-room, 
but  decentl^^  and  stealthily.  You  could 
scarcely  see  the  Egyptian  figures  of  the 
iron  andirons  in  a  hearth  full  of  cinders, 
on  which  two  brands  tried  to  keep  to- 
gether before  a  sham  log  of  brick,  buried 
as  carefullj^  as  the  treasure  of  a  miser. 
An  old  Aubusson  carpet,  much  mended, 
much  faded,  and  .as  well-worn  as  a  pen- 
sioner's coat,  did  not  cover  all'tlie  floor, 
which  struck  cold  to  the  feet.  Tlie  walls 
were  ornamented  with  a  reddish  paper, 
representing  a  China  silk  with  a  yellow 
pattern.  In  the  middle  of  the  wall,  op- 
posite the  windows,  the  painter  saw  a 
chink  and  the  break  produced  in  the 
paper  by  the  two  doors  of  an  alcove, 
in  which  Madame  Leseigneur  slept,  no 
doubt,  which  were  scarcely  masked  by 
a  sofa  placed  before  them.  Opposite  the 
chimney,  over  a  mahogany  chiffonier  of 
a  style  not  without  richness  and  good 
taste,  hung  the  portrait  of  a  soldier  of 
high  rank,  which  the  feeble  light  did  not 
allow  the  painter  to  see  distinctly,  but, 
from  what  he  could  perceive,  he  fancied 
this  frightful  daub  must  have  been 
painted  in  China.  At  the  windows,  the  red 
silk  curtains  were  as  discolored  as  the  red 
and  yellow  tapestry  of  the  furniture  of  this 
double-functioned  room.  On  the  marble 
of  the  chiffonier  stood  a  valuable  mala- 
chite salver,  containing  a  dozen  coffee- 
cups  magniflcentlj^  painted,  and  manu- 
factured, no  doubt,  at  Sevres.  On  the 
mantelpiece  figured  the  eternal  clock  of 
the  empire,  a  warrior  guiding  the  four 
horses  of  a  chariot,  whose  wheel  bears 
at  every  spoke  the  number  of  an  hour. 
The  wax  candles  in  the  candelabra  were 
turned  yellow  b^'  the  smoke,  and  at  each 
corner  of  the  mantelpiece  was  a  porcelain 
vase  surmounted  by  flowers,  full  of  dust 
and  garnished  with  moss.  In  the  middle 
of  the  room,  Hippolj'te  remarked  a  card- 
table  all  iDrepared,  with  some  new  cards 
on  it.  There  was  something  inexpres- 
sibly affecting  to  an  observer  in  the  sight 


THE    PURSE. 


23 


of  this  poverty  painted  like  an  old  woman 
who  tries  to  make  her  face  lie.  At  this 
spectacle,  every  man  of  sense  would  have 
proposed  to  himself  secreth",  and  from 
the  beginning',  this  species  of  dilemma : 
either  these  two  women  are  honesty  it- 
self, or  they  live  by  intrig-ue  and  play. 
But  on  looking  at  Adelaide,  a  young  man 
as  pure  as  Schiuner  would  believe  in  the 
most  pei'fect  innocence,  and  attribute 
the  incongruities  of  this  furnishing  to 
the  most  honorable  causes. 

"My  child,"  said  the  old  lady  to  the 
young  girl,  "  I  am  cold  ;  make  up  the 
fire,  and  give  me  my  shawl.'' 

Adelaide  went  into  the  adjacent  room, 
where,  no  doubt,  she  slept,  and  returned, 
bringing  to  her  mother  a  cashmere  shawl 
which  must  have  cost  a  great  deal  when  it 
was  new,  for  the  pattern  was  Indian;  but, 
old,  faded,  and  full  of  darns,  it  harmonized 
with  the  furniture.  Madame  Leseigneur 
put  it  on  ver^'  artistically,  and  with  the 
tact  of  an  old  woman  who  wishes  the  truth 
of  her  words  to  be  believ^ed.  The  young 
girl  ran  nimblj'  to  the  capharmaum,  and 
reappeared  with  a  handful  of  small  wood, 
which  she  threw  boldlj'  on  the  fire  to  make 
it  burn  up. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  transcribe  the 
conversation  which  took  place  between 
these  three  persons.  Guided  b^'  the  tact 
almost  always  acquired  by  a  childhood 
spent  in  misfortune,  Hippolyte  carefully' 
avoided  the  least  observation  relative  to 
the  position  of  his  neighbors,  seeing 
around  hiui  the  sj-mptoms  of  an  embar- 
rassment so  badly  disguised.  The  most 
simple  question  might  have  been  indis- 
creet, unless  from  the  mouth  of  an  old 
friend.  Nevertheless,  the  painter  was 
profoundly  affected  by  this  hidden  mis- 
ery  ;  his  generous  heart  suffered ;  but, 
knowing  how  offensive  any  kind  of  pity, 
even  the  most  friendly,  may  appear,  he 
felt  ill  at  ease  from  the  discordance  which 
existed  between  his  thoughts  and  his 
words.  The  two  ladies  talked  at  first 
about  painting,  for  women  divine  so  well 
the  secret  embarrassment  of  a  first  visit ; 
perhaps  tliey  feel  it  themselves,  and  their 
feminine  instinct  furnishes  them  with  a 
thousand  resources  for  putting-  an  end  to 


it.  While  questioning  the  young  man 
about  the  material  process  of  his  art, 
and  about  his  studies,  Adelaide  and  her 
mother  inspired  him  with  courage  to  talk. 
The  indefinable  workings  of  their  conver- 
sation, animated  with  benevolence,  led  on 
Hippolyte  quite  naturally  to  let  fall  re- 
marks or  reflections  which  indicated  the 
nature  of  his  habits  and  his  heart. 

Grief  had  prematurely  aged  the  face  of 
the  old  lady,  doubtless  handsome  in  its 
day ;  but  there  remained  nothing  but  the 
striking  features,  the  outline — in  a  word, 
the  skeleton  of  a  countenance  which,  taken 
altogether,  indicated  great  refinement ; 
much  grace  in  the  play  of  the  eyes,  which 
recalled  the  expression  peculiar  to  the  wo- 
men of  the  old  court,  and  which  no  words 
can  define.  These  features,  so  small  and 
so  refined,  might  just  as  well  denote  an 
evil  disposition,  and  indicate  feminine  cun- 
ning and  craft  carried  to  a  high  degree  of 
perversity,  as  reveal  the  delicacy  of  a  noble 
mind.  In  fact,  the  feminine  physiognomy 
is  so  far  embarrassing  to  common  observ- 
ers, that  the  difference  between  frankness 
and  duplicity,  between  the  spirit  of  in- 
trigue and  the  spirit  of  honor,  is  imper- 
ceptible. The  man  endowed  with  pene- 
trating insight  divines  the  imperceptible 
shades  produced  hy  a  profile  more  or  less 
bold,  a  dimple  more  or  less  hollow,  a  feat- 
ure more  or  less  arched  or  prominent. 
The  appreciation  of  these  diagnostics  is 
entirelj'  in  the  domain  of  intuition,  which 
alone  can  discover  what  everybody'  is  in- 
tei'ested  in  concealing.  It  was  the  same 
with  the  countenance  of  the  old  lady  as 
with  the  apartments  she  inhabited ;  it 
seemed  as  difficult  to  tell  whether  their 
poverty  sheltered  viciousness  or  strict  pro- 
bity, as  to  decide  whether  the  mother  of 
Adelaide  was  an  old  coquette,  accustomed 
to  weigh  everything,  to  calculate  everj'- 
thing,  and  to  sell  ever\'thing,  or  an  affec- 
tionate woman,  full  of  nobility  and  amiable 
qualities.  But  at  the  age  of  Schinner,  the 
first  impulse  of  the  heart  is  to  believe  in 
good  ;  and  in  contemplating  the  noble  and 
almost  disdainful  brow  of  Adelaide,  and 
looking  into  her  eyes  full  of  soul  and  of 
thought,  he  inhaled,  so  to  speak,  the  sweet 
and  modest  perfume  of  virtue. 


24 


THE    HUMAX    COMEDY. 


In  the  middle  of  the  conversation,  he 
seized  the  opportunity  of  talking-  about 
portraits  in  general,  in  order  to  luive  a 
rig'ht  to  examine  the  frightful  pastel,  the 
colors  of  which  had  all  faded,  and  the 
principal  part  of  its  surface  fallen  a\va3^ 

"  You  prize  this  picture,  no  doubt,  for 
the  sake  of  the  likeness,  ladies,  for  the 
drawing  is  hoi*rible,"  said  he,  looking  at 
Adelaide. 

"It  was  done  at  Calcutta,  in  great 
haste,"  replied  the  mother  in  a  voice  of 
emotion. 

She  gazed  at  the  shapeless  sketch  with 
the  profound  abstraction  caused  by  the 
I'ecoUections  of  happiness,  when  they 
awake  and  fall  on  the  heart,  like  a  be- 
neficent dew  to  whose  refreshing  influence 
we  love  to  abandon  ourselves  ;  but  there 
were  also  in  the  expression  of  the  counte- 
nance of  the  old  lady  the  vestiges  of  an 
eternal  mourning.  At  least,  tlie  painter 
chose  thus  to  interpret  the  attitude  and 
the  phj'siognomy  of  his  neighbor,  by  whose 
side  he  came  and  sat  down. 

"Madame,"  said  he,  "in  a  very  short 
time  the  colors  of  this  pastel  will  liave 
disappeared.  The  portrait  will  exist  no 
longer  except  in  your  memory.  Where 
you  see  a  face  dear  to  3'ou,  others  will 
perceive  nothing.  Will  you  permit  me  to 
transfer  this  likeness  to  canvas  ?  It  will 
be  more  firmly  fixed  on  that  than  it  is  on 
this  paper.  Allow  me,  as  a  neighbor,  the 
pleasure  of  rendering  yo\x  this  service. 
There  are  always  liours  in  which  an  artist 
is  happy  to  amuse  himself,  after  his  grand 
compositions,  hy  works  of  a  less  elevated 
chai'acter,  and  it  will  be  an  amusement 
for  me  to  reproduce  this  head." 

The  old  lady  heard  these  words  with  a 
start  of  joy,  and  Adelaide  cast  on  the 
painter  one  of  those  concentrated  glances 
which  seem  to  be  an  emanation  of  the 
soul.  Hippolyte  wislied  to  attach  himself 
to  his  two  neighbors  by  some  tie,  and  to 
obtain  the  right  of  mingling  with  their 
life.  His  offer,  addressed  to  the  warmest 
affections  of  the  heart,  was  the  onl^'  one 
he  could  possibly  make ;  it  gratified  his 
artist's  pride,  and  could  not  offend  the 
two  ladies.  Madame  Leseigneur  accepted 
it  without  eagerness  or  reluctance,  but 


with  the  con.scientiousness  of  great  minds 
which  comprehend  the  extent  of  the  ties 
formed  by  such  obligations,  and  consti- 
tute them  a  magnificent  eulogj',  a  proof 
of  esteem. 

"  This  uniform,"  said  the  painter, 
"seems  to  be  that  of  a  naval  oniccr?" 

"  Yes,"  said  she ;  "  it  is  that  of  a  post 
captain.  Monsieur  de  Rouville,  my  hus- 
band, died  at  Batavia,  of  a  wound  received 
in  a  combat  with  an  English  vessel  which 
he  encountered  on  the  coast  of  Asia.  He 
commanded  a  frigate  of  fift^'-six  guns, 
and  thei?et;en(/ewas  a  ship  of  ninety-six. 
The  combat  was  very  unequal,  but  he  de- 
fended himself  so  courag-eously  that  he 
kept  it  up  until  night  enabled  him  to 
escape.  When  I  returned  to  France, 
Bonaparte  was  not  yet  in  power,  and 
the^'  refused  me  a  pension.  When  I  re- 
newed my  application  lately,  the  minister 
hai'shly  told  me  tliat  if  the  Baron  de  Rou- 
ville had  emigrated,  I  should  not  have  lost 
him  :  that  he  would  doubtless  have  been 
a  rear  admiral  by  this  time  ;  in  short,  his 
excellency'  concluded  by  referring  me  to  I 
don't  know  what  law  of  forfeiture.  I  only 
took  this  step,  to  which  I  was  urged  by 
my  friends,  for  the  sake  of  my  poor  Ade- 
laide. I  have  alwaj^s  had  a  repugnance 
to  hold  out  my  hand  in  the  name  of  an 
affliction  which  deprives  a  woman  of 
speech  and  strength.  I  do  not  like  this 
pecuniary  valuation  of  blood  irreparably' 
si^illed." 

"  Mamma,  this  subject  of  conversation 
always  upsets  3'ou." 

At  this  remark  of  Adelaide's  the  Bar- 
oness Leseigneur  de  Rouville  bowed  her 
head  and  remained  silent. 

"Sir,"  said  the  young  gii-l  to  Hip- 
polyte, "  I  thought  that  a  painter's  work 
was  not  generally  very  noisy." 

At  this  question  Schinner  began  to 
blush  at  the  remembrance  of  the  disturb- 
ance he  had  made.  Adelaide  did  not 
finish,  and  spared  him  some  falsehood  by 
rising  suddenly  at  the  sound  of  a  carriage 
which  stopped  at  the  door.  She  went  into 
her  room,  and  returned  immediately  car- 
rying two  gilt  candlesticks,  holding  half- 
burned  wax-candles,  which  she  quickly 
lighted ;    and   without   waiting  for    the 


THE    PURSE. 


25 


ringing  of  the  bell,  slie  opened  the  door 
of  the  first  room,  and  left  the  lamp  there. 
The  sound  of  a  kiss  given  and  received 
re-echoed  in  the  heart  of  Hippolyte.  The 
impatience  of  the  j'oung  man  to  see  the 
person  who  treated  Adelaide  so  familiarl.y 
was  not  very  quickly  satisfied ;  the  new 
arrivals  had  a  whispered  conversation 
with  the  3'ouug  girl,  which  appeared  very 
long  to  him. 

At  length  Mademoiselle  de  Ron  villa  re- 
appeared, followed  hx  two  men  whose  cos- 
tume, physiognomy,  and  aspect  were  a 
history-  in  themselves.  The  first,  aged 
about  sixty,  wore  one  of  those  coats  in- 
vented, I  believe,  for  Louis  XVIII.,  then 
reig-ning',  and  in  which  the  most  difficult 
of  sumptuary  problems  was  solved  by  a 
tailor  who  ought  to  have  been  immortal. 
This  ai'tist  recog-nized,  assuredly,  the  art 
of  transition,  which  was  the  sole  genius 
of  this  politically  shifting  age.  Is  it  not 
a  rare  merit  to  be  able  to  judge  one's 
epoch  ? 

This  coat,  which  the  young  men  of  the 
day  may  take  for  a  myth,  was  neither 
civil  nor  military,  and  might  pass  by 
turns  for  military  or  for  civil.  Embi'oid- 
ered  fleurs-de-lis  ornamented  the  flaps  of 
the  tails;  the  gilt  buttons  were  likewise 
fleur-de-lised.  On  the  shoulders,  two 
empty  sti"aps  demanded  useless  epaulets. 
These  two  military  emblems  looked  like  a 
petition  without  an  address.  With  the 
old  man,  the  button-hole  of  this  coat, 
which  was  made  of  blue  cloth,  was  adorned 
with  several  ribbons.  No  doubt  he  alwaj'S 
held  in  his  hand  his  three-cornered  hat 
trimmed  with  gold  coi'd,  for  the  snow_y 
locks  of  his  powdered  hair  showed  no 
trace  of  the  pressure  of  a  hat.  He  did 
not  look  more  than  fifty,  and  appeared 
to  enjoy  robust  health.  While  pi'oclaim- 
ing  the  frank  and  loyal  character  of  the 
old  emigrants,  his  physiognomy  also  de- 
noted the  easy  and  libertine  manners,  the 
gay  passions  and  carelessness,  of  those 
mousquetaires  formerl3-  so  celebrated  in 
the  annals  of  gallantry.  His  actions,  his 
gait,  his  manners  announced  that  he 
would  not  easily  give  up  either  his  royal- 
ism,  or  his  religion,  or  his  amours. 

A  truly  fantastic  figure  followed  this 


imposing  voltigeur  de  Louis  XIV.  (such 
was  the  nickname  given  by  the  Bonapart- 
ists  to  these  noble  remains  of  the  Mon- 
archy) ;  but  in  order  to  paint  it  properly, 
it  would  have  to  be  made  the  principal 
object  of  a  picture  in  which  it  is  only  an 
accessory.  Imagine  a  lean  and  dried-up 
personage,  dressed  like  the  first,  but  being 
only,  so  to  speak,  his  reflection,  or  his 
shadow,  if  you  like.  The  coat  of  the  one 
was  new ;  the  other's  was  old  and  faded. 
The  powder  of  the  hair  seemed  less  white 
in  the  second,  the  gold  of  the  fleurs-de-lis 
less  shining,  the  shoulder-straps  more  de- 
spairing and  more  shriveled  up,  the  intel- 
lect weaker,  the  life  further  advanced  to- 
ward the  fatal  term,  than  in  the  first.  In 
short,  he  realized  the  saj'ing  of  Rivarol 
about  Champcenetz :  "  He  is  my  moon- 
light." He  was  only  the  double  of  the 
other — a  pale  and  poor  double,  for  there 
existed  between  them  the  same  difference  - 
as  between  the  first  and  the  last  impres- 
sion of  a  lithograph.  This  dumb  old  man 
was  a  mysterj'  to  the  painter,  and  re- 
mained a  constant  mystery.  The  cheva- 
lier—  for  he  was  a  chevalier  —  did  not 
speak,  and  nobody  spoke  to  him.  Was 
he  a  friend,  a  poor  relation,  a  man 
who  accompanied  the  old  gallant  like 
an  old  lady's  companion?  Was  he  the 
medium  between  the  dog,  the  parrot, 
and  the  friend  ?  Had  he  saved  the  fort- 
une, or  only  the  life  of  his  benefactor  ? 
Was  he  the  Trim  of  another  Captain 
Toby  ?  Elsewhere,  as  at  the  Baroness  de 
Rouville's,  he  always  excited  curiosity 
without  ever  satisfying  it.  Who  could 
recollect,  under  the  Restoration,  the  at- 
tachment which,  before  the  Revolution, 
united  this  chevalier  to  his  friend's  wife, 
dead  twenty  years  ago  ? 

The  personage  who  appeared  the  most 
modern  of  these  two  ancient  men  ad- 
vanced gallantly  toward  the  Baroness 
de  Rouville,  kissed  her  hand,  and  sat 
down  beside  her.  The  other  bowed  and 
placed  himself  at  a  distance  represented 
by  two  chaii's  from  his  original.  Ade- 
laide came  and  leaned  her  elbows  on  the 
back  of  the  chair  occupied  bv  the  old 
gentleman,  imitating,  without  knowing 
it,  the  attitude  given  by  Guerin  to  the 


26 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


sister  of  Dido  in  his  celebrated  picture. 
Although  the  familiaritj'  of  the  old  gen- 
tleman was  that  of  a  father,  his  liberties 
appeared  for  the  moment  to  displease  the 
young  girl. 

*■  Well,  are  you  cross  with  me  ?  "  said 
he. 

Then  he  cast  on  Schinner  one  of  those 
oblique  glances,  full  of  shrewdness  and 
cunning — a  diplomatic  glance,  whose  ex- 
pression betrayed  the  prudent  anxietj', 
the  polite  curiosity  of  well-bred  people, 
who  seem  to  inquire,  on  seeing  an  un- 
known, 'Ms  he  one  of  us  ?  " 

"  You  see  a  neighbor  of  ours,"  said  the 
old  lady,  pointing  to  Hippolyte.  "This 
gentleman  is  a  celebrated  painter,  whose 
name  must  be  known  to  you  in  spite  of 
your  indifference  to  the  arts." 

The  gentleman  noticed  the  ingenuity  of 
his  old  friend  in  the  omission  of  the  name, 
and  bowed  to  the  j'oung  man. 

"Cei^tainly,"  said  he,  "  I  have  heard  a 
great  deal  of  his  pictures  at  the  last  Ex- 
hibition. Talent  has  great  privileges, 
sir,"  added  he,  looking  at  the  artist's 
red  ribbon.  "  This  distinction,  which  we 
have  to  win  at  the  price  of  our  blood  and 
long  services,  you  obtain  while  you  are 
young'.  But  all  honoi's  are  kindred," 
added  he,  putting  his  hand  on  his  cross 
of  St.  Louis. 

Hippolyte  murmured  some  words  of 
thanks,  and  relapsed  into  silence,  con- 
tenting himself  with  admiring  with  in- 
creasing enthusiasm  the  splendid  head 
of  the  young  girl,  "by  which  he  was 
charmed.  Ho  soon  became  absorbed  in 
this  contemplation,  and  thought  no  more 
of  the  poorness  of  the  place.  For  him, 
the  face  of  Adelaide  was  encircled  by  a 
luminous  atmosphere.  He  replied  briefly 
to  the  questions  addressed  to  him,  which 
he  fortunately'  heard,  thanks  to  a  singu- 
lar faculty  of  the  mind,  whose  ideas  maj' 
sometimes  become  in  a  manner  divided. 
To  whom  has  it  not  happened  to  remain 
plunged  in  a  reverie,  either  voluptuous  or 
sad,  and  hear  its  voice  within  his  breast, 
wliile  listening  to  a  conversation  or  a 
reading  ?  Admirable  dualism,  which  often 
helps  us  to  have  patience  with  bores ! 
Fertile  and   smiling,  hope  spread  before 


him  a  thousand  thoughts  of  happiness, 
and  he  no  longer  wished  to  notice  any- 
thing around  him.  A  child,  full  of  confl- 
dence,  it  seemed  to  him  a  shame  to  ana- 
lyze pleasure.  After  a  certain  lapse  of 
time,  lie  perceived  that  the  old  lady  and 
her  daughter  were  playing  at  cards  with 
the  old  gentleman.  As  to  the  latter's 
satellite,  keeping  up  his  character  of  a 
shadow,  he  stood  behind  his  friend,  ab- 
sorbed in  his  game,  replying  to  the  mute 
questions  addressed  to  him  hy  the  player 
by  little  grimaces  of  approval  which  re- 
plied to  the  interrogatory  movements  of 
the  other  physiognomy. 

"Du  Halga,  I  always  lose,"  said  the 
gentlema-n. 

"  You  put  out  badly,"  replied  the 
Baroness  de  Rouville. 

"For  three  months  I  have  not  won  a 
single  game  of  you,"  he  returned. 

"Monsicnir  le  Comte,  have  j'ou  the 
aces  ?  "  asked  the  old  lad3'. 

"Yes.     One  more  scored,"  said  he. 

"Will  you  let  me  give  you  my  advice  ?" 
said  Adelaide. 

"No,  no;  keep  in  front  of  me.  Ventre 
de  biche  !  it  would  be  losing  too  much  not 
to  have  j'ou  in  sight." 

At  last  the  game  came  to  an  end.  The 
gentleman  took  out  his  purse,  and  throw- 
ing two  louis  on  the  table,  said  pettishly', 
"  Fortj;'  francs — as  good  as  gold.  And, 
diantre!  it  is  eleven  o'clock." 

"It  is  eleven  o'clock,"  said  the  silent 
personage,  looking  at  the  painter. 

The  3'oung  man,  hearing  this  last  word 
rather  more  distinctly  th;ni  the  others, 
bethought  him  that  it  was  time  to  retire. 
Re-entering  the  world  of  ordinaiy  ideas, 
he  took  advantage  of  an  opportunity  to 
join  in  the  conversation,  took  leave  of  the 
baroness,  her  daughter,  and  the  two  un- 
known, and  went  away,  a  prey  to  the  first 
delights  of  true  love,  without  seeking  to 
analyze  the  little  incidents  of  the  evening. 

The  next  daj',  the  j'oung  painter  ex- 
perienced a  most  violent  desire  to  see 
Adelaide  again.  If  he  had  listened  to  his 
passion,  he  would  have  called  on  his  neigh- 
bors at  six  in  the  morning,  when  he  came 
to  his  atelier.  He  had  sense  enough,  how- 
ever, to  wait  till  the  afternoon.     But,  as 


THE    PURSE. 


soon  as  he  tliou|^hfc  ho  mi.ght  present  him- 
self at  Madame  de  Rouville's,  he  went 
down  ;  rang-  the  bell,  not  without  some 
strong-  palpitations  of  the  heart ;  and, 
blushing-  like  a  j'oung  girl,  timidly  asked 
Mademoiselle  Leseig-neur,  who  had  come 
to  open  the  door  to  him,  for  the  portrait 
of  the  Baron  de  Rouville. 

"  Come  in,  please,"  said  Adelaide,  who, 
no  doubt,  had  heard  him  come  down  from 
his  atelier. 

The  painter  followed  her,  bashful  and 
confused,  not  knowing-  what  to  say.  So 
nujch  happiness  made  him  stupid.  To  see 
Adelaide,  to  listen  to  the  rustle  of  her 
dress,  after  ha\'ing-  longed  all  the  morning- 
to  be  near  her,  after  having  got  up  a  hun- 
dred times  and  said,  "I  will  go  down  !  " 
and  not  going-  down,  was,  for  hun,  such 
a  rapturous  existence,  that  such  sensa- 
tions, too  much  prolong'ed,  would  have 
exhausted  his  senses.  The  heart  has  the 
singular  power  of  putting-  an  extraordi- 
nary price  upon  trifles.  What  joy  for  a 
traveler  to  pick  a  blade  of  grass,  an  un- 
known leaf,  if  he  has  risked  his  life  in  the 
search  for  them  !  It  is  the  same  with  the 
trifles  of  love. 

The  old  lady  was  not  in  the  room. 
When  the  young  girl  found  herself  alone 
with  the  paintei',  she  brought  a  chair  to 
get  down  the  portrait ;  but,  on  perceiving- 
that  she  could  not  unhook  it  without 
putting  her  foot  on  the  chiffonier,  she 
turned  to  Hippolyte,  and  said  with  a 
blush — 

"I  am  not  tall  enough — will  you  get 
it?" 

A  sentiment  of  modesty,  proved  by  the 
expression  of  her  countenance  and  the 
accent  of  her  voice,  was  the  true  motive 
of  her  request ;  and  the  young-  man,  so 
understanding  it,  gave  her  one  of  those 
intelligent  looks  which  are  the  softest 
language  of  love.  Seeing-  that  the  painter 
had  understood  her,  Adelaide  cast  down 
her  eyes  with  a  movement  of  pride,  the 
secret  of  which  belongs  to  maidens.  Not 
finding  a  word  to  say,  and  almost  abashed, 
the  painter  took  the  picture,  examined  it 
gravely  by  the  light  of  the  window,  and 
went  awaj',  without  saying-  any  more  to 
Mademoiselle  Leseigneur  than — 


"1  will  soon  bring  it  you  back  again." 

During  this  rapid  instant,  they  both  of 
them  experienced  one  of  those  strong  agi- 
tations whose  effects  upon  the  mind  may 
be  compared  to  those  caused  by  a  stone 
thrown  into  a  lake.  The  sweetest  reflec- 
tions arise  and  succeed  each  other,  in- 
definite, multiplied,  and  aimless,  agitating 
the  heart  like  the  retreating  circles  which 
for  a  long  while  ruffle  the  water,  starting 
from  the  sjjot  where  the  stone  was  thrown 
in.  

Hippolj'te  returned  to  his  atelier  armed 
with  the  portrait.  Already  his  easel  was 
provided  with  a  canvas,  a  palette  was 
charged  with  colors ;  the  brushes  were 
cleaned,  and  the  place  and  the  light 
chosen ;  and  until  dinner  time  he  worked 
at  the  portrait  with  the  ardor  which 
artists  infuse  into  their  caprices.  He  re- 
turned the  same  evening  to  the  Baroness 
de  Rouville's,  and  sta^-ed  from  nine  till 
eleven. 

Except  the  different  subjects  of  conver- 
sation, this  evening  exactly  resembled 
the  previous  one.  The  two  old  men  ar- 
rived at  the  same  time,  the  same  game 
at  piquet  took  place,  the  same  phrases 
were  spoken  by  the  players,  the  sum  lost 
by  Adelaide's  friend  was  as  large  as  that 
lost  the  evening  before  ;  only  Hippolyte, 
grown  a  little  bolder,  ventured  to  talk  to 
the  young  girl. 

Tlius  passed  a  week,  during  which  the 
sentiments  of  the  painter  and  of  Adelaide 
went  through  those  delicious  and  gradual 
transformations  which  lead  the  mind  to  a 
perfect  understanding.  Thus,  day  by 
day,  the  look  with  which  Adelaide  wel- 
comed her  friend  became  more  friendly, 
more  confiding,  more  gay,  more  frank; 
her  voice,  her  manners,  grew  more  sig- 
nificant and  more  familiar.  Tii(>y  both 
laughed  and  chatted,  communicated  their 
thoughts  to  each  other,  and  talked  about 
themselves  with  the  simplicity  of  two 
children  who,  in  the  space  of  one  day, 
have  become  as  good  friends  as  if  they 
had  known  each  other  for  three  years. 
Schianer  tried  to  learn  piquet.  Ignorant, 
and  a  perfect  novice,  he  naturallj'  made 
blunder  on  blunder ;  and,  like  the  old 
man,  he  lost  nearly  everj'  game.    With- 


28 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


out  having'  yet  confided  to  each  other 
their  love,  the  two  lovers  knew  that  they 
belong-ed  to  each  other.  Hippol^'te  took 
pleasure  in  exercising  his  power  over  his 
timid  love.  Manj^  concessions  were  made 
to  him  by  the  timid  and  devoted  Ade- 
laide, "who  was  the  dupe  of  those  sham 
estrangements  which  the  least  skillful 
lover  or  tlie  most  simple  young-  girl  can 
invent,  and  of  which  thej'  avail  them- 
selves continually,  as  spoiled  children 
abuse  their  power  over  their  mother's 
love. 

Thus,  all  familiarities  soon  ceased  be- 
tween the  old  count  and  Adelaide.  The 
young  girl  understood  the  displeasure  of 
the  painter,  and  the  ideas  hidden  in  the 
lines  of  his  foi^ehead,  in  the  brusk  accent  of 
the  few  words  he  uttered,  when  the  old  man 
kissed  without  ceremon^^  the  hands  or  the 
cheek  of  Adelaide.  On  her  side,  Made- 
moiselle Leseigneur  soon  required  from 
her  lover  a  rigid  account  of  his  slightest 
actions.  She  was  so  unhappy,  so  uneasy 
when  Hippolj'te  did  not  come,  she  knew 
so  well  how  to  scold  him  for  his  absences, 
that  tbe  painter  ha4  to  give  up  visiting 
his  friends,  and  went  no  more  into  so- 
ciety, Adelaide  allowed  a  woman's  nat- 
ural jealousy  to  show  itself  on  learning 
that  sometimes,  after  leaving  Madame  de 
Eouville's  at  eleven  o'clock,  the  painter 
made  some  more  visits,  and  appeared  in 
the  most  brilliant  salons  of  Paris.  That 
kind  of  life,  she  told  him,  was  bad  for  his 
health  ;  and  then,  with  that  profound 
conviction  to  which  the  accent,  the 
actions,  and  the  looks  of  a  loving  girl 
give  so  much  power,  she  insisted  that  a 
man  obliged  to  bestow  on  several  women 
at  once  his  time  and  the  charms  of  his 
mind,  could  not  be  the  subject  of  a  very 
strong  affection.  Tlie  painter  was  thus 
led  on,  as  much  by  the  despotism  of  pas- 
sion as  by  the  exactions  of  a  loving  young 
g-irl,  to  live  only  in  this  little  household, 
where  everything  pleased  him.  In  short, 
never  was  love  moi'e  pure  or  more  ardent. 
An  equal  faith  and  an  equal  delicacy'  on 
each  side  kept  this  passion  growing, 
without  the  help  of  those  sacrifices  by 
which  many  people  seek  to  prove  their 
love.    There  existed  between  them  a  con- 


tinual exchange  of  sensations  so  sweet, 
that  they  never  knew  which  gave  and 
which  received  the  most.  An  involun- 
tar3'  inclination  kept  their  hearts  always 
closely  united. 

Tlie  pi'ogress  of  this  g-enuine  sentiment 
was  so  rapid  that,  two  months  after  the 
accident  to  which  the  painter  was  indebted 
for  the  happiness  of  knowing-  Adelaide, 
their  life  had  become  one  and  the  same 
life.  In  the  morning,  when  the  young 
girl  heard  footsteps  above  her,  she  could 
say  to  herself,  "He  is  there."  When 
Hippoh'te  returned  to  his  mother's  at 
dinner  time,  he  never  missed  coming  to 
greet  his  neighbors ;  and  in  the  evening 
he  arinved  at  the  usual  hour,  with  the 
punctuality  of  a  lover.  Thus,  the  most 
tyrannical  and  most  exacting  of  women 
in  her  love  could  not  have  made  the 
slightest  reproach  to  the  j'oung-  painter  ; 
and  Adelaide  tasted  a  boundless  and  un- 
alloyed happiness  in  seeing  the  ideal  of 
which  it  is  so  natural  to  dream  at  her 
age  realized  to  its  fullest  extent.  The 
old  gentleman  came  le.ss  frequentlj',  the 
jealous  Hippolyte  having  replaced  him  of 
an  evening  at  the  card-table,  and  in  his 
constant  ill-luck  with  the  cards.  Still,  in 
the  midst  of  his  happiness,  while  thinking 
of  the  disastrous  situation  of  Madame  de 
Rouvillc — for  he  had  acquired  more  than 
one  proof  of  her  distress — he  was  seized 
b3'^  an  annoj-ing  idea.  Already  he  had 
said  to  himself  several  times,  on  return- 
ing home,  "What!  twenty  francs  every 
evening?"  And  he  dared  not  avow  to 
himself  his  odious  suspicions. 

He  took  two  months  to  paint  the  por- 
trait, and  when  it  was  finished,  varnished, 
and  framed,  he  looked  upon  it  as  one  of 
his  best  works.  The  Baroness  de  Rou- 
ville  had  not  said  a  word  more  to  him 
about  it.  Was  it  f orgetfulness  or  pride  ? 
The  painter  did  not  wish  to  explain  to 
himself  the  reason  of  this  silence.  He 
plotted  joyously  with  Adelaide  to  put  the 
portrait  in  its  place  during  the  absence  of 
Madame  de  Rouville. 

So  one  day,  during  the  walk  which  her 
mother  generally  took  in  the  Tuileries, 
Adelaide  went  upstairs  alone,  for  the  first 
time,  to  the  painter's  studio,  under  the 


THE    PURSE. 


29 


pretext  of  seeing  the  portrait  in  the  fav- 
orable hght  in  which  it  had  been  painted. 
She  remained  mute  and  motionless,  g-iven 
up  to  a  delicious  contemplation  in  which 
all  a  woman's  sentiments  are  merged  in 
one.  Are  they  not  all  summed  up  in  a 
boundless  admiration  for  the  beloved  one  ? 
When  the  painter,  uneasy  at  this  silence, 
bent  forward  to  look  at  the  young  girl, 
she  gave  him  her  hand,  without  being 
able  to  say  a  word,  but  two  tears  fell 
from  her  eyes.  Hippolyte  took  the  hand, 
covered  it  with  kisses,  and  for  a  moment 
they  looked  at  each  other  in  silence,  both 
of  them  wishing  to  avow  their  love,  but 
not  daring.  The  painter  kept  the  hand 
of  Adelaide  in  his,  and  then  a  mutual 
warmth  and  a  mutual  emotion  showed 
them  that  both  their  hearts  beat  equallj^ 
strongly.  Too  deeply  agitated,  the  young 
girl  withdrew  herself  gently  from  Hippo- 
lyte, and  said,  with  a  look  full  of  naivete. 

"You  will  make  my  mother  very 
happy." 

"What!  your  mother  only?  "  asked  he. 

"Oh,  me?    I  am  too  happy  already." 

The  painter  bent  his  head  and  kept  si- 
lence, alarmed  at  the  violence  of  the  sen- 
timents which  the  accent  of  this  speech 
awoke  in  his  heart.  Then,  understanding, 
both  of  them,  the  danger  of  this  situation, 
they  went  down  and  put  the  portrait  in 
its  place. 

Hippolyte  dined  for  the  first  time  with 
the  baroness,  who,  in  her  emotion,  and 
all  in  tears,  wanted  to  embrace  him.  In 
the  evening  the  old  emigrant,  an  old  com- 
rade of  the  Baron  de  Rouville,  paid  a  visit 
to  his  two  friends,  to  inform  them  that  he 
had  been  made  a  vice-admiral.  His  ter- 
restrial navigations  across  Germany  and 
Russia  had  been  allowed  to  reckon  as 
naval  campaigns.  At  the  sight  of  the 
portrait,  he  shook  the  painter  cordially 
by  the  hand,  and  exclaimed — 

"On  my  honor,  although  my  old  car- 
case is  not  worth  preserving,  I  would 
gladly  give  five  hundred  pistoles  to  see 
myself  as  well  done  as  my  old  friend  Rou- 
ville." 

At  this  proposition  the  baroness  gave 
her  friend  a  look,  and  smiled,  while  al- 
lowing the  signs  of  a  sudden  gratitude  to 


appear  on  her  countenance.  Hippolyte 
thought  he  could  discei-n  that  the  old  ad- 
miral wished  to  offer  him  the  price  of  the 
two  portraits  in  paying  for  his  own.  His 
artist's  pride,  as  much  as  his  jealousj^, 
perhaps,  took  offense  at  this  idea,  and  he 
replied — 

"If  I  painted  portraits,  sir,  I  should 
not  have  taken  this  one." 

The  admiral  bit  his  lips,  and  sat  down 
to  his  game. 

The  painter  remained  by  Adelaide,  who 
proposed  a  rubber  at  piquet,  and  he  ac- 
cepted. While  playing  himself,  he  re- 
marked in  Madame  de  Rouville  an  ardor 
for  play  which  surprised  him.  Never  be- 
fore had  this  old  baroness  manifested  so 
ardent  a  desire  to  win,  nor  so  lively  a 
pleasure  is  fingering  the  gold  pieces  of 
the  gentleman.  During-  the  evening,  evil 
suspicions  arose  to  disturb  the  happiness 
of  Hippolyte  and  inspire  him  with  dis- 
trust. Did  Madame  de  Rouville  live  by 
play,  then  ?  Was  she  not  plnj-ing,  at 
this  moment,  to  pay  off  some  old  debt,  or 
urged  by  some  necessity  ?  Perhaps  she 
had  not  paid  her  rent.  This  old  man  ap- 
peared quite  knowing  enougli  not  to  allow 
his  monej^  to  be  filched  with  impunitj'. 
What  interest  attracted  this  rich  man  to 
this  poor  house  ?  These  involuntary  re- 
flections incited  him  to  watch  the  old  man 
and  the  baroness,  whose  airs  of  intelli- 
gence and  certain  oblique  looks  cast  on 
Adelaide  and  himself  displeased  him. 
"  Are  thej  deceivmg  me  ? "  was  for 
Hippolj'te  a  last  idea,  horrible  and  de- 
grading, and  in  which  he  believed  exactly 
enough  to  be  tortured  b^'  it.  He  wished 
to  sta\'  until  after  the  departure  of  the 
two  old  men,  to  confirm  his  suspicions  or 
to  dissipate  them.  He  took  out  his  purse 
to  pay  Adelaide,  but,  carried  away  b}'  his 
bitter  thoughts,  he  put  it  on  the  table  and 
fell  into  a  reverie,  which  did  not  last  long. 
Then,  ashamed  of  his  silence,  he  rose,  re- 
plied to  a  trifling  question  of  Madame  de 
Rouville,  and  came  to  her  side  in  order  to 
be  able,  while  chatting,  to  observe  more 
closely  this  old  countenance.  He  went 
away  a  prej^  to  a  thousand  uncertainties. 
After  having  gone  down  a  few  stairs,  he 
came  back  to  get  his  foi'gotten  purse. 


30 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  I  left  my  purse  with  you,"  said  he  to 
the  young  girl. 

"No,"  she  answered,  blushing. 

"  I  thought'it  was  there,"  replied  he, 
pointing  to  the  card-table. 

Asliauied,  for  Adelaide's  sake  and  the 
baroness's,  not  to  see  it  there,  he  looked 
at  them  witli  a  stupefied  air  which  made 
them  laugh,  turned  pale,  and  continued, 
feeling  his  waistcoat,  "I  was  mistaken; 
I  dare  say  I  have  got  it." 

In  one  end  of  this  purse  there  were  fif- 
teen louis,  and  in  the  other  some  small 
change.  The  theft  was  so  flagrant,  and 
so  impudenth'  denied,  that  Hippolyte  had 
no  more  doubt  as  to  the  morality  of  his 
neighbors.  He  stopped  on  the  stairs,  and 
got  down  them  with  difficulty ;  his  legs 
trembled,  he  turned  giddy,  he  perspired, 
he  shivered,  and  found  himself  quite  un- 
able to  walk,  struggling  with  the  frightful 
commotion  caused  by  the  overthrow  of  all 
his  hopes.  From  this  moment  he  recalled 
to  his  memory  a  crowd  of  observations, 
slight  in  appeai'ance,  but  which  corrobo- 
rated his  hideous  suspicions,  and  which, 
by  proving  the  reality  of  this  last  act, 
opened  his  eyes  to  the  character  and  the 
life  of  these  two  women.  Had  they  waited, 
then,  until  the  portrait  was  given  to  steal 
the  purse  ?  If  planned,  the  robbery  seemed 
far  more  odious.  The  painter  remembered, 
for  his  misfortune,  that,  for  two  or  three 
evenings,  Adelaide,  while  appearing  to 
examine  with  a  young  girl's  curiosity  the 
peculiar  make  of  the  worn-out  silk  netting, 
had  probably  ascertained  the  money  con- 
tained in  the  purse  while  making  remarks, 
innocent  in  appearance,  but,  no  doubt, 
with  the  object  of  watching  for  the  mo- 
ment when  the  sum  would  be  large  enough 
to  be  abstracted. 

"  The  old  admiral  has  excellent  reasons, 
perhaps,  for  not  marrying  Adelaide  ;  and 
then  the  baroness  has  tried  to — "  At  this 
supposition  he  stopped  short,  and  did  not 
even  finish  his  thought,  which  was  demol- 
ished by  a  very  just  reflection.  "  If  the 
baroness,"  he  thought,  "hoped  to  marry 
her  daughter  to  me,  they  would  not  have 
robbed  me."  Then  he  tried,  so  as  not  to 
have  to  renounce  his  illusions  and  his  love, 
already  so  deeply  rooted,   to  find  some 


justification  in  chance.  "  My  purse  must 
have  fallen  on  the  ground,"  he  said  to 
himself ;  "it  has  caught  on  my  chair. 
Perhaps  I  have  got  it;  I  am  so  forgetful." 
He  felt  himself  all  over,  with  rapid  move- 
ments, but  did  not  find  the  accursed  purse. 
His  cruel  memory  recalled  momentarily 
the  fatal  truth.  He  saw  distinctly  his 
purse  spread  on  the  table  ;  but,  doubting 
the  theft  no  longer,  he  still  made  excuses 
for  Adelaide,  saying  to  himself  that  we 
ought  not  to  judge  the  unfortunate  so 
quickly.  No  doubt,  thei-e  was  a  secret 
in  'this  action  apparently  so  degrading. 
He  would  not  admit  that  this  proud  and 
noble  countenance  was  a  lie.  Neverthe- 
less, this  miserable  dwelling  appeared  to 
him  denuded  of  the  poesies  of  love,  which 
embellishes  ever>i:hing.  He  saw  it  soiled 
and  stained,  and  considered  it  the  repre- 
sentative of  an  inner  life,  ignoble,  unoc- 
cupied, and  vicious.  Are  not  our  senti- 
ments, so  to  say,  written  on  the  things 
which  surround  us  ? 

The  next  morning,  he  got  up  without 
having  slept.  The  heartache,  that  serious 
moral  malady,  had  made  enormous  prog- 
ress in  him.  To  lose  a  dreamed-of  happi- 
ness, to  renounce  an  entire  future,  is  a 
pang  much  more  acute  than  that  caused 
by  the  ruin  of  a  felicity  already  experi- 
enced, however  complete  it  may  have 
been.  Is  not  hope  always  better  than 
remembrance  ?  The  meditations  into 
which -the  soul  suddenly  falls  are  then 
like  a  sea  without  a  shore,  on  the  bosom 
of  which  we  maj'  float  for  a  moment,  but 
in  which  our  love  must  drown  and  perish. 
And  it  is  a  fearful  'death.  Are  not  our 
sentiments  the  most  brilliant  part  of  our 
life  ?  From  this  partial  death  proceed, 
in  certain  delicate  or  powerful  organi- 
zations, the  awful  ravages  produced  by 
hopes  and  passions  betrayed.  Thus  it 
was  with  the  young  painter.  He  went 
out  early  in  the  morning  to  walk  in  the 
cool  shades  of  the  Tuileries,  absorbed  in 
his  thoughts,  forgetting  everj'thing  in 
the  world.  There,  by  chance,  he  met 
one  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  an  old 
companion  at  school  and  in  the  studio, 
with  whom  he  had  agreed  better  than 
with  a  brother. 


THE    PURSE. 


31 


"  Well,  Hippolyte,  what  is  the  matter 
with  you?"  said  FraiiQols  Suchet,  a 
young  sculptor,  who  had  just  obtained 
the  grand  prize,  and  was  soon  to  start 
for  Italy. 

"  I  am  very  unhappy,"  replied  Hippo- 
lyte, gravely. 

"It  is  only  a  love  affair  that  could  up- 
set you.  Money,  glory,  consideration — 
nothing  else  fails  you." 

Insensibly,  confidences  began,  and  the 
painter  avowed  his  love.  The  moment 
he  mentioned  the  Rue  de  Suresnes,  and 
a  young  girl  who  lived  on  the  fourth 
floor — 

"Halt  there!"  cried  Suchet,  gayly. 
"  It  is  a  little  girl  I  come  to  the  As- 
sumption every  morning  to  see,  and  to 
whom  I  am  making  love.  Why,  my  dear 
fellow,  we  all  know  her.  Her  mother  is 
a  baroness.  Do  3'ou  believe  in  baronesses 
lodging  on  the  fourth  floor  ?  B-r-r-r  ! 
Ah,  well,  you  are  a  man  of  the  golden 
age.  We  see  the  old  mother  here,  in  the 
avenue,  every  daj'.  Why,  she  has  got  a 
face  and  a  style  that  tells  everything. 
What !  you  have  not  guessed  what  she 
is  from  the  way  she  holds  her  bag  ?  " 

The  two  friends  walked  about  for  a 
long  time,  and  several  young  men  who 
knew  Suchet  or  Schinner  joined  them. 
The  adventure  of  the  painter,  considered 
of  very  little  importance,  was  related  to 
them  by  the  sculptor. 

"And  he,  too,"  said  he,  "has  seen  this 
little  girl !  " 

There  were  observations,  laughter,  and 
jokes,  innocent  and  stamped  with  the 
gayety  familiar  to  artists,  but  which 
made  Hippolyte  suffer  horribly.  A  cer- 
tain baslifulness  of  disposition  made  him 
ill  at  ease  on  seeing  the  secret  of  his  heart 
treated  so  lightly,  his  passion  torn  into 
tatters  ;  an  unknown  young  girl,  whose 
life  appeared  so  modest,  subject  to  judg- 
ments, true  or  false,  given  with  so  much 
carelessness.  He  feigned  to  be  moved  by 
a  spirit  of  contradiction  ;  he  demanded 
seriously  from  each  the  proofs  of  his 
assertions,  and  the  joking  recommenced. 

"  But,  my  dear  fellow,  have  you  seen 
the  baroness's  shawl?"  said  Suchet. 

"  Have  you  followed  the  little  one  when 


she  trots  to  the  Assumption  of  a  morn- 
ing ?  "  said  Joseph  Bridau,  a  young  color- 
grinder  from  the  atelier  of  Gros. 

' '  Ah  !  the  mother  possesses,  among 
other  virtues,  a  certain  gray  dress  which 
I  look  upon  as  a  tj-pe,"  said  Bixiou,  the 
maker  of  caricatures. 

"  Listen,  Hippolyte,"  resumed  the  sculp- 
tor. "  Come  here  about  four  o'clock,  and 
just  analyze  the  walk  of  the  mother  and 
daughter.  If  you  have  any  doubts  after 
that,  well,  they  will  never  make  an>i;hing 
of  you,  and  you  will  be  capable  of  marry- 
ing the  daughter  of  your  porteress." 

A  prey  to  the  most  conflictiiig  senti- 
ments, the  painter  quitted  his  friends. 
Adelaide  and  her  mother,  it  seemed  to 
him,  ought  to  be  above  these  accusations, 
and  he  felt  remorse  from  the  bottom  of 
his  heart,  for  having  suspected  the  purity 
of  this  young  girl,  so  beautiful  and  so 
simple.  He  came  to  his  studio,  passed  by 
the  door  of  the  apartments  which  con- 
tained his  Adelaide,  and  felt  a  pang  at  the 
heart,  in  which  no  man  is  mistaken.  He 
loved  Mademoiselle  de  Rouville  so  pas- 
sionately that,  in  spite  of  the  robbery  of 
the  purse,  he  adored  her  still.  His  love 
was  like  that  of  the  ChevaUer  des  Grieux 
admiring  and  purifying  his  mistress  even 
in  the  cart  which  takes  abandoned  women 
to  prison.  "  Why  should  not  my  love 
render  her  the  purest  of  all  women  ?  Why 
abandon  her  to  evil  and  vice,  without 
holding  out  to  her  a  friendly  hand?" 
This  mission  pleased  him.  Love  turns 
everything  to  its  own  advantage.  Noth- 
ing tempts  a  young  man  more  than  to 
play  the  part  of  good  genius  to  a  woman. 
There  is  a  certain  something  romantic  in 
the  enterprise  which  suits  excitable  dis- 
positions. Is  it  not  the  most  comprehen- 
sive devotion  in  the  most  graceful  and 
elevated  form  ?  Is  there  not  a  grandeur 
in  knowing  that  we  love  enough  to  love 
still  when  the  love  of  others  fades  out  and 
dies  ? 

Hippolyte  sat  down  in  his  studio,  looked 
at  his  picture  without  doing  anything  to 
it,  only  seeing  the  figures  through  the 
tears  that  hung  in  his  eyes,  always  hold- 
ing his  brush  in  his  hand,  advancing  to- 
ward the  canvas  as  if  to  soften  a  tint,  and 


32 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


not  touching:  it.  Nig'ht  surprised  him  in 
this  attitude.  Eoused  fi'om  his  reverie  by 
tlie  darl^ness,  he  went  down,  met  the  old 
admiral  on  the  staircase,  g-ave  him  a  som- 
ber look  in  bomng  to  him,  and  rushed 
away.  He  had  intended  to  call  on  his 
neighbors,  but  the  sight  of  the  protector 
of  Adelaide  froze  his  heart  and  put  his 
resolution  to  flight.  He  asked  himself, 
for  the  hundredth  time,  what  interest 
could  attract  this  old  man  of  loose  man- 
ners, with  eighty  thousand  li\T:'es  a  year, 
to  this  fourth  story,  where  he  lost  about 
forty  francs  every  evening.  This  interest 
he  thought  he  could  guess.  The  next  and 
the  following  days,  Hippoljiie  threw  him- 
self into  hard  work,  to  try  and  combat  his 
passion  by  the  rush  of  ideas  and  the  heat 
of  conception.  He  succeeded  by  half. 
Study  consoled  him,  but  without  having 
the  power  to  smother  the  memory  of  so 
many  delightful  hours  spent  with  Ade- 
laide. 

One  evening,  on  leaving  his  studio,  he 
found  the  door  of  the  apartments  of  the 
two  ladies  ajar.  Some  one  was  standing 
in  the  embrasure  of  the  window.  The 
position  of  the  door  and  the  staircase  did 
not  allow  of  his  passing  without  seeing 
Adelaide.  Ho  bowed  coldly,  giving  her  a 
look  full  of  indifference ;  but,  judging  the 
3'oung  girl's  sufferings  by  his  own,  he 
shuddered  internally  on  thinking  of  the 
bitterness  this  look  and  this  coldness  must 
cast  into  a  loving  heart.  To  crown  the 
sweetest  liours  that  had  ever  rejoiced  two 
pure  souls  by  a  week  of  disdain,  and  by 
the  most  profound  and  entire  contempt ! 
Frightful  conclusion.  Perhaps  the  purse 
had  been  found,  and  perhaps  every  even- 
ing Adelaide  had  expected  her  friend. 
This  idea,  so  simple  and  natural,  caused 
fresh  remorse  to  the  lover ;  he  asked  him- 
self whether  the  proofs  of  attachment  the 
young  girl  had  given  him,  whether  the 
rapturous  conversations  impregnated 
with  a  love,  which  had  charmed  him, 
did  not  deserve  at  least  an  inquir\'— were 
not  worth  a  justification.  Ashamed  of 
having  resisted  for  a  week  the  wishes  of 
his  heart,  and  feeling  almost  guilty  on 
account  of  this  combat,  he  called  the  same 
evening  on  Madame  de  Rouville.     All  his 


suspicions,  all  his  evil  thoughts,  vanishe 
at  the  sight  of  the  young  girl,  pale  ano 
fallen  away. 

"  Ah,  good  Heaven  !  what  is  the  matter 
with  you  ?  "  he  said  to  her,  after  havinj^ 
saluted  the  baroness. 

Adelaide  answei'ed  nothing,  but  she 
gave  him  a  look  full  of  melancholy — a 
sad,  dejected  look,  which  gave  him  pain. 

"You  have,  no  doubt,  been  working 
hard,"  said  the  old  ladj'.  "You  are 
altered.  We  are  the  cause  of  your  se- 
clusion. That  portrait  has  delayed  some 
pictures  of  importance  to  3'our  reputa- 
tion." 

Hippolyte  was  happy  to  find  so  good  an 
excuse  for  his  impoliteness. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  "I  have  been  very 
hwsy,  but  I  have  been  ill." 

At  these  words,  Adelaide  raised  her 
head  and  looked  at  her  lover ;  her  anxious 
eyes  reproached  him  no  more. 

"  And  you  supposed  that  we  were  quite 
indifferent  to  any  good  or  bad  fortune 
that  might  happen  to  you  ?  "  said  the  old 
lady. 

"I  was  wrong,"  replied  he.  "Yet 
there  are  troubles  which  .cannot  be  con- 
fided to  any  one,  not  even  to  a  fiiendship 
less  recent  than  that  witli  which  you 
honor  me." 

"  The  sincerity  and  the  strength  of 
friendship  cannot  be  measured  by  time. 
I  have  seen  old  friends  not  shed  a  tear 
for  each  other  in  misfortune,"  said  the 
baroness,  shaking  her  head. 

"  But  what  is  the  matter  with  you  ?  " 
inquired  the  young  -man  of  Adelaide. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  replied  the  baroness. 
"  Adelaide  has  been  spending  some  nights 
in  finishing  a  piece  of  ladj^'s  work,  and 
would  not  believe  me  when  I  told  her  that 
a  day  more  or  less  was  of  little  conse- 
quence." 

Hippolyte  was  not  listening.  On  seeing 
these  two  faces,  so  noble  and  so  pure,  he 
blushed  for  his  suspicions,  and  attributed 
the  loss  of  his  purse  to  some  unknown 
accident.  This  evening  was  delicious  for 
him,  and  perhaps  also  for  her.  There  are 
some  secrets  that  young  hearts  compre- 
hend so  well  !  Adelaide  guessed  the 
thoughts  of  Hippolyte.    Without  wish- 


THE    PURSE. 


33 


ng  to  avow  his  faults,  the  painter  ac- 
kuowled^ed  them  ;  he  returned  to  his 
mistress  more  loving  and  more  affection- 
ate, endeavoring  thus  to  purchase  a  tacit 
'Jardon.  Adelaide  tasted  a  joy  so  perfect 
and  so  sweet,  that  it  did  not  seem  too 
dearly  bought  by  all  the  torture  which 
had  so  cruelly  torn  her  heart.  The  veri- 
table harmony  of  their  souls,  that  under- 
standing- full  of  magic,  was  nevertheless 
disturbed  by  a  word  from  the  Baroness  de 
Rouville.  "  Shall  we  have  our  little 
game?"  said  she;  "for  my  old  Kerga- 
rouet  sulks  with' me." 

This  phrase  aroused  all  the  fears  of  the 
young  painter,  who  blushed  on  looking  at 
the  mother  of  Adelaide  ;  but  he  only  saw 
on  her  face  the  expression  of  an  unaf- 
fected good  nature.  No  evil  design  de- 
stroyed its  charm  ;  there  was  no  treach- 
ery in  its  slyness ;  its  sharpness  seemed 
kindly,  and  no  remorse  disturbed  its  calm. 
He  sat  down  to  the  cai'd-table.  Adelaide 
wished  to  share  in  the  painter's  stakes, 
pretending  that  he  did  not  know  piquet 
and  wanted  a  partner.  Madame  de  Rou- 
ville and  her  daughter  made  signs  to  each 
other  during  the  game,  vt^hich  made  Hip- 
polyte  all  the  more  uneasy  because  he  was 
winning ;  but,  in  the  end,  the  last  hand 
rendered  the  two  lovers  the  debtors  of  the 
baroness.  Having  to  get  some  change 
out  of  his  pocket,  the  painter  took  his 
hands  off  the  table,  and  then  he  saw  be- 
fore him  a  purse,  which  Adelaide  had 
slipped  there  without  his  notice.  The 
poor  girl  was  holding  the  old  one,  and,  to 
keep  herself  in  countenance,  was  looking 
in  it  for  the  money  to  pay  her  mother. 
All  Hippolj^te's  blood  rushed  so  suddenly 
to  his  heart  that  he  nearly  lost  conscious- 
ness. The  new  purse  substituted  for  his, 
and  which  contained  his  fifteen  louis,  was 
worked  in  gold  beads.  The  slides,  the 
tassels,  everything  attested  the  good 
taste  of  Adelaide,  who,  without  doubt, 
had  spent  her  winnings  on  the  ornaments 
of  this  charming  piece  of  work. 


It  was  impossible  to  say  with  more 
delicacy  that  the  gift  of  the  painter  could 
only  be  recompensed  by  a  proof  of  affec- 
tion. When  Hippolyte,  overwhelmed 
with  happiness,  turned  his  eyes  on  Ade- 
laide and  the  baroness,  he  saw  them  trem- 
bling with  pleasure  and  rejoicing-  in  this 
amiable  piece  of  trickery.  He  felt  himself 
little,  mean,  and  foolish ;  he  would  have 
liked  to  be  able  to  punish  himself,  to  tear 
his  breast.  Tears  came  into  his  eyes  ;  he 
got  up,  and,  by  an  irresistible  impulse, 
took  Adelaide  in  his  arms,  pressed  her  to 
his  heart,  snatched  a  kiss,  and  then,  with 
the  bluntness  of  an  artist,  "  I  ask  her  of 
you  for  my  wife,"  he  cried,  looking  at  the 
baroness. 

Adelaide  turned  on  the  painter  eyes 
half  angr^',  and  Madame  de  Kouville 
was  trying  to  find  an  answer,  when 
this  scene  was  interrupted  by  the  sound 
of  the  bell. 

The  old  vice-admiral  appeared,  followed 
by  his  shadow  and  Madame  Schinner. 
After  having  divined  the  cause  of  the 
grief  which  her  son  vainly  endeavored  to 
hide  from  her,  the  mother  of  Hippolyte 
had  made  inquiries  of  some  of  her  friends 
about  Adelaide.  Justly  alarmed  at  the 
calumnies  which  hung  over  the  young 
girl  unknown  to  the  Count  de  Kergarouet, 
whose  name  was  told  her  by  the  portiere, 
she  went  to  tell  them  to  the  vice-admiral, 
who,  in  his  rage,  would  have  liked,  he  said, 
to  cut  off  the  scoundrel's  ears.  Animated 
hy  his  indignation,  the  admiral  confided 
to  Madame  Schinner  the  secret  of  his  vol- 
untary losses  at  cards — that  the  pride  of 
the  baroness  left  him  only  this  ingenious 
means  of  assisting  her. 

When  Madame  Schinner  had  saluted 
Madame  de  Rouville,  the  latter  looked  at 
the  Count  de  Kergarouet,  the  Chevalier 
du  Halga  (the  old  lover  of  the  Countess 
de  Kergarouet),  Hippolyte,  and  Adelaide, 
and  said,  with  the  grace  that  comes  from 
the  heart,  "  It  seems  we  are  a  familj'  party 
to-night." 


BiALZAe— B 


34 


THE    HUMAN    COMEUr. 


tl. 

COUSIN    PONS. 


A  GLORIOUS   RELIC   OF   THE   EMPIRE. 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of 
a  day  in  October,  1844,  a  man,  whose  age 
was  about  sixty  (though  everj'  one  would 
have  taken  him  to  be  oldei'),  mig-ht  have 
been  seen  wending  his  way  along  the 
Boulevard  des  Italiens.  His  nose  was  in 
the  air  and  his  lips  were  pursed  up,  like 
those  of  a  merchant  who  has  just  struck 
a  good  bargain,  or  of  a  young  man  leav- 
ing his  sweetheart  in  high  good-humor 
with  himself.  Now,  at  Pai-is,  this  eleva- 
tion of  the  nose  and  pursing  of  the  lips 
are  the  strongest  indications  of  self-satis- 
faction that  a  man  can  possiblj^  exhibit. 

So  soon  as  those  persons,  who,  seated 
on  chairs,  line  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens, 
day  after  day,  and  resign  themselves  to 
the  charm  of  analyzing  the  passers-by, 
had  caught  sight  of  the  old  man  in  the 
distance,  that  peculiar  smile,  which  char- 
acterizes the  denizen  of  Pai-is,  began  to 
steal  over  their  faces.  'Tis  a  smile  that 
teems  with  irony,  ridicule,  or  S3nnpathy, 
according  to  circumstances ;  but  only  rare 
and  living  curiosities  can  summon  it  to 
the  features  of  the  Parisian,  whose  eyes 
are  feasted,  even  to  satiety,  with  every 
species  of  spectacle. 

A  certain  smart  retort  will  explain  the 
value,  from  an  archaeological  point  of 
view,  of  this  old  fellow,  and  the  cause 
of  the  smile  which,  on  his  appearance, 
flashed,  echo-like,  from  face  to  face. 
Hyacinthe,  an  actor  celebrated  for  his 
sallies,  being  asked,  on  a  certain  occasion, 
where  he  had  those  hats  made,  the  mere 
sight  of  which  was  wont  to  set  the  play- 
house in  a  roar,  replied,  "I  do  not  get 
them   made ;    I  keep   them."     Even  so, 


among  the  million  actors  of  whom  the 
Grand  Parisian  Company  consists,  there 
is  full  many  an  unconscious  Hyacinthe 
who,  retaining  in  his  attire  all  the  ab- 
surdities of  some  particular  period,  bursts 
upon  3'our  astonished  gaze,  the  complete 
personification  of  an  epoch,  as,  chewing 
the  cud  of  bitter  grief  over  the  treachery 
of  some  quondam  friend,  you  are  saunter- 
ing along,  and  extorts  from  you  a  burst 
of  merriment. 

By  preserving,  in  certain  details  of  his 
apparel,  a  quixotic  fidelity  to  the  fashions 
of  the  year  1806,  the  pedestrian  in  ques- 
tion recalled,  without  being  a  positive 
caricature  of,  the  imperial  era ;  and  herein 
lies  a  distinction  the  subtilty  of  which 
lends,  in  the  eye  of  a  close  observer,  a 
peculiar  value  to  apparitions  of  this  kind. 
But  the  combination  of  minute  details,  to 
which  we  are  now  referring,  would  fail  to 
arrest  the  attention  of  persons  not  en- 
dowed with  the  analj'tic  power  that  dis- 
tinguishes the  connoisseur  in  fldnerie ; 
and,  to  evoke  laughter  while  he  was  still 
at  a  distance,  our  pedestrian  must  have 
presented  some  such  glaring  extrava- 
gance of  garb  as  actors  aim  at  in 
order  to  secure  a  round  of  applause 
when  first  they  step  on  to  the  stage. 
And  such  a  glaring  extravagance  this 
pedestrian  did  indeed  exhibit.  Over  a 
greenish  coat,  garnished  with  buttons  of 
white  metal,  this  lean  and  gaunt  old  man 
wore  a  hazel-colored  spencer  !  A  man 
with  a  spencer  in  1844  !  Why,  'tis  much 
the  same  thing  as  if  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
had  deigned  to  revisit  the  glimpses  of  the 
sun  for  a  couple  of  hours  ! 

The  spencer,  as  its  name  imports,  was 
invented  by  a  certain  lord  who  wa.s, 
doubtless,  vain  of  his  good  figure.     Be- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


35 


fore  the  peace  of  Amiens,  the  Englishman 
in  question  had  solved  the  problem  how 
to  cover  the  upper  part  of  the  hoAy  with- 
out overwhelming  it  beneath  the  weight 
of  that  hideous  box-coat  which  is  now 
Avearing  out  the  remnant  of  its  days  on 
the  backs  of  the  old  hackney-coachmen 
of<Paris.  But  since  fine  figures  are  the 
exception,  not  the  rule,  the  spencer,  as  a 
fashion  for  the  male  sex,  had,  in  spite  of 
its  English  origin,  but  a  transient  triumph 
in  France. 

At  sight  of  this  spencer,  the  men  of 
from  forty  to  fifty  indulged  their  fancies 
by  dressing  its  wearer  in  imaginary  top- 
boots  and  imaginary  breeches  of  green 
kerseymere,  tied  with  an  imaginary 
bunch  of  ribbons,  and  thus  once  more 
beheld  themselves  in  the  costume  of  their 
youth ;  the  old  ladies  called  to  mind  their 
former  conquests  ;  while,  as  for  the  young 
men,  they  simply  asked  themselves  why 
this  aged  Alcibiades  had  cut  away  the 
tail  of  his  overcoat.  So  thoroughlj^  was 
the  whole  aspect  of  the  old  man  in  keep- 
ing with  the  spencer  that  you  would  at 
once  have  pronounced  him  to  be  an  Em- 
pire-man, just  as  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
talking  about  Empire-furniture.  But  he 
was  a  symbol  of  the  Empire  to  those 
only,  who,  having  known  that  magnifi- 
cent and  imposing  epoch,  at  least  de  visu, 
possessed  the  indispensable  qualification 
of  a  somewhat  accurate  recollection  of  its 
fashions.  The  interval  of  time  that  sepa- 
rates us  from  the  Empire  is  already  so 
wide  that  it  is  not  given  to  every  one  to 
recall  it,  in  all  its  Gallo-Gi'eek  reality. 

In  the  indulgence  of  that  species  of  bra- 
vado adopted  by  the  bureaucracy  and 
civilians  in  general  under  the  Empire,  by 
way  of  retort  to  the  bravado  of  military 
men,  this  old  fellow  carried  his  hat  upon 
the  back  of  his  head,  so  as  to  expose  al- 
most the  whole  of  his  forehead.  The  hat, 
moreover,  was  a  shocking  twelve-and-six- 
penny  silk  hat,  whose  nether  brim  two 
large  long  ears  had  stained  with  whitish 
splotches  that  defied  the  brush,  while  the 
silken  covering  of  the  hat,  having  been, 
as  usual,  unskillfully  applied  to  the  paste- 
board shape,  was  puckered  here  and  there, 
and  seemed,  in  spite  of  the  careful  hand 


that  groomed  it  morning  after  morning, 
to  be  suffering  from  an  attack  of  leprosy. 

Beneath  this  hat,  thus  precariously 
worn,  stretched  a  sheepish  comical  face, 
such  as  you  may  see  upon  the  shoulders 
of  a  Chinese  squab,  and  nowhere  else. 
This  vast  visage,  which  was  as  full  of 
pits  as  a  skimming-ladle  is  full  of  holes — 
of  pits  so  deep  that  they  actually  cast 
shadows — resembled  a  Roman  mask  dug 
out  of  the  earth,  and  violated  every  rule 
of  anatomy.  Scan  the  features  as  you 
might,  your  eye  discovered  not  a  trace  of 
framework  in  them.  Bones  the  face  seem- 
ingly' had  none,  but  where  they  should 
haA'e  been,  your  eye  encountered  flat  ge- 
latinous curves  of  flesh,  and  wandered 
thence,  to  find  flaccid  spherical  knobs 
usurping  the  place  of  what,  in  an_y  ordi- 
nary physiognomy,  would  have  been  a 
hollow ;  while,  like  some  erratic  bowlder, 
that  commands  a  plain,  a  huge  Don  Quix- 
ote nose — the  kind  of  nose  which  (as  Cer- 
vantes must  have  noticed)  indicates  a 
congenital  devotion  to  noble  aims,  that 
is  apt  to  degenerate  into  gullibility — stood 
boldly  out,  the  most  prominent  feature 
in  this  grotesque  countenance,  through 
which,  as  through  a  large  flat  toad-stool, 
peered  a  pair  of  sad  gray  eyes,  surmount- 
ed by  two  red  lines  that  did  duty  for  eye- 
brows. The  ugliness  of  this  old  man, 
however  (all  comic  as  it  was),  did  not  ex- 
cite derision  ;  the  extreme  melancholy  that 
welled  over  from  the  poor  fellow's  faded 
eyes  appealed  directly  to  the  scoffer's 
heart,  and  froze  the  joke  upon  his  lips. 
The  thought  would  at  once  suggest  itself, 
that  Nature  had  peremptorily  forbidden 
this  poor  creature,  under  pain  of  exciting 
a  woman's  laughter  or  disgust,  to  breathe 
a  single  syllable  of  love.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  such  a  misfortune  a  Frenchman 
is  dumb  ;  for,  to  a  Fi"enchman,  the  most 
cruel  of  all  misfortunes  is  —  to  lack  the 
power  to  win  a  woman's  favor  ! 

The  dress  of  this  man,  thus  branded  by 
the  hand  of  Nature,  was  that  of  all  poor 
gentleraen^a  class  which  the  wealthy 
often  strive  to  ape.  Over  his  shoes  he 
wore  a  pair  of  gaiters,  which  were  fash- 
ioned like  those  of  the  Imperial  Guard, 
and  doubtlessly  helped  him  to  keep  down 


3G 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


his  washing-bill.  There  were  reddish  tints 
about  his  black  cloth  trousers,  each  Avhitc 
and  shiny  fold  of  which  said,  as  plainly  as 
their  cut,  that  three  years  had  elapsed 
since  they  were  bought.  Ample  as  they 
were,  they  failed  to  conceal  a  certain 
leanness,  which  (to  judge  from  the  old 
fellow's  sensual  mouth,  whose  full  thick 
lips  disclosed,  at  every  smile,  two  rows  of 
pearl-white  teeth  that  would  have  done  no 
discredit  to  a  shark)  was  the  resuit  of  a 
constitutional  tendency  rather  than  of  a 
Pythagorean  diet.  Beneath  his  double- 
breasted  waistcoat  of  black  cloth  he  wore 
a  second  waistcoat,  which  was  white,  and 
beneath  this,  again,  in  the  third  rank, 
blazed  the  red  margin  of  a  knitted  vest ; 
so  that  one  was  irresistibly  reminded  of 
Garat's  five  Avaistcoat^.  An  enormous 
white  muslin  cravat,  whose  pretentious 
bow  had  been  devised  by  some  dandy  to 
charm  "the  charming  women "  of  the 
year  1809,  rose  so  high  above  the  old 
man's  chin  that  his  face  seemed,  as  it 
were,  ingulfed  in  the  folds  of  the  cravat. 
A  chain  of  plaited  silk,  to  imitate  hair, 
spanned  the  old  man's  shirt-front,  and 
protected  his  watch  from  a  robbery  that 
no  one  was  likely  to  attempt.  His  green- 
ish coat,  though  irreproachably  tidy,  was 
some  three  years  senior  to  the  trousers ; 
but  its  black  velvet  collar  and  white  metal 
buttons  had  been  recently  renewed,  and 
thus  told  a  tale  of  minute  domestic  care- 
fulness. 

This  trick  of  fixing  the  hat  upon  the 
occiput,  the  triple  waistcoat,  the  immense 
cravat  in  which  the  chin  lay  buried,  the 
gaiters,  the  metal  buttons  on  the  greenish 
coat — all  these  insignia  of  the  fashions  of 
the  Empire  harmonized  with  the  exploded 
perfumes  of  Incroyable  foppery,  with  an 
indefinable  tenuity  in  the  folds  of  the  old 
man's  garments,  and  a  certain  all-per- 
vading primness  and  precision  that  re- 
called tho  school  of  David  and  the  fragile 
furniture  of  Jacob.  Nor  did  it  require  a 
second  glance  to  discover  that  the  person 
thus  attired  was  either  a  gentleman  gov- 
erned by  some  secret  vice,^r  one  of  those 
men  with  small  fixed  incomes,  whose  ex- 
penditure is  restrained  by  the  scantiness 
of  their  resources  within  limits  so  narrow 


and  so  nicely  adjusted  that  a  broken  pane, 
a  torn  coat,  or  that  philanthropic  pesti- 
lence— a  collection  for  the  poor — will  leave 
them  without  pocket-money  for  a  whole 
month. 

Had  3'ou  been  upon  the  spot,  you  would 
assui-edly  have  asked  j'ourself  how  it  came 
to  pass  that  a  smile  was  lig'hting  up  tljis 
uncouth  countenance,  whose  liabitual  cast, 
like  that  of  all  who  are  involved  in  an  ob- 
scure struggle  for  the  common  necessaries 
of  life,  would  naturally  be  cold  and  sad. 
But  had  you  noticed  the  paternal  care  be- 
stowed by  this  singular  old  man  upon  the 
evidently'  valuable  object  v.'hich  he  was 
holding  in  his  right  hand,  beneath  the 
two  left  skirts  of  his  double  coat,  in  order 
to  guard  the  treasure  from  casual  blows ; 
and,  more  especially,  had  you  observed 
that  his  face  wore  the  busy  look  assumed 
bj'  the  idler, when  engaged  in  the  execution 
of  a  commission,  j'ou  would  have  sur- 
mised that  the  old  man  must  have  recov- 
ered some  article  as  jirecious  as  the  lap- 
dog  of  a  marchioness ;  and  that,  with  all 
the  bustling  gallantry  of  an  Empire-man, 
he  was  conveying  it  in  triumiDh  to  the 
"  charming  woman "  of  sixty,  who  has 
not  yet  learned  to  dispense  with  the  daily 
visit  of  her  admirer.  Paris  is  the  onl^'  city 
in  the  world  in  which  you  can  ei;counter 
such  scenes  —  scenes  which  convert  its 
boulevards  into  a  perpetual  drama,  acted 
by  the  Frejich  people,  gratis,  for  the 
benefit  of  Art, 


II. 


THE  END  OF  A  WINNER  OF  THE  GRAND 
PRIX  DE  ROME. 

Judging  from  the  build  of  this  raw- 
boned  person,  you  would  have  experienced 
some  difficulty,  the  audacious  spencer  not- 
withstanding, in  classing  him  among  the 
artists  of  Paris^a  hoAy  of  men  who 
closely  resemble  the  Parisian  street  Arab, 
in  so  far  as  they  possess  the  privilege  of 
working  the  imaginations  of  sober-sided 
citizens  into  ecstasies  of  what,  since  the 
old  drolatic  word  miroholant  has  been 
restored  to   its  ancient  honors,  may  be 


COUSIN-    PONS. 


37 


termed  most  miroholant  mirth.  Yet  an 
artist  our  pedestrian  undoubtedly  was, 
and  a  grand-prize  man  to  boot ;  the  com- 
poser of  the  cantata  which,  first  after 
the  re-establishment  of  the  Academie  de 
Rome,  carried  off  the  laurel  at  the  Insti- 
tute— in  short,  this  pedestrian  was  no  less 
a  man  than  M.  Sylvain  Pons !  the  com- 
poser of  certain  celebrated  romances 
which  our  mothers  used  to  warble,  of  two 
or  tliree  operas  which  were  put  upon  tlie 
stage  in  1815  and  1816,  and  of  sundry  un- 
published scores  besides.  Now,  in  the  lat- 
ter autumn  of  his  life,  this  worthy  man 
was  conductor  of  the  orchestra  of  a  boule- 
vard theater.  Thanks  to  his  ugliness,  he 
also  held  the  post  of  music-master  in  sev- 
eral boarding-schools  for  young  ladies. 
His  salary  and  fees  for  out-door  lessons 
were  his  only  sources  of  revenue.  An 
out-door  tutor  at  his  time  of  life  !  What 
a  world  of  mysteries  in  that  prosaic  po- 
sition !  ' 

Thus,  then,  this  last  of  the  spencer- 
wearers  bore,  upon  his  outer  man,  some- 
thing bej'ond  the  mere  symbols  of  the 
imperial  epoch.  There  was  a  grand  les- 
son to  be  learned  from  the  three  waist- 
coats which  he  wore.  He  exhibited  him- 
self, gratis,  as  one  of  the  numerous  victims 
of  the  sinister  and  fatal  system  called 
competition,  which,  after  a  barren  proba- 
tion of  one  hundred  years,  still  reig-ns- 
supreme  in  France.  This  Intelligence- 
Press  was  invented  bj^  Poisson  de  Ma- 
rigny,  Madame  de  Pompadour's  brother, 
who,  in  or  about  the  year  1746,  was  ap- 
pointed director  of  the  Fine  Arts. 

Now  just  cast  up — you  may  do  it  on 
3'our  fingers — the  names  of  the  men  of 
genius  furnished  to  us  from  the  ranks  of 
the  laureates  during  the  past  century.  In 
the  first  place,  let  governments  and  acad- 
emies do  what  they  will,  it  is  impossible 
that  their  combinations  should  do  the 
work  of  those  miracles  of  chance  to  which 
great  men  owe  their  origin.  That  origin 
is,  of  all  the  mysteries  of  g-eneration,  the 
most  inscrutable  to  the  all-searching 
analysis  which  we,  in  these  modern 
times,  have  set  on  foot.  Again,  the 
Egyptians  are  said  to  have  invented 
ovens  for  hatching  chickens ;  now  what 


would  you  think  of  these  Egyptians  if 
they  had  omitied  to  provide  these  chick- 
ens with  appropriate  food  so  soon  as  they 
were  hatched  ?  Yet  it  is  precisely  thus 
that  France  is  acting.  She  first  en- 
deavors to  produce  artists  by  means  of 
the  hot-house  of  competition ;  and  then, 
the  sculptor,  painter,  engraver,  or  com- 
poser once  manufactured  by  this  purelj' 
mechanical  process,  she  recks  as  little  of 
him  as  the  evening  dandy  recks  of  the 
flowers  with  which  he  decked  his  button- 
hole in  the  morning. 

It  turns  out,  after  all,  that  the  real 
men  of  talent  are  Greuze  or  Watteau, 
Felicien  David  or  Pagnest,  Gericault  or 
Decamps,  Auber  or  David  d 'Angers,  Eu- 
gene Delacroix  or  Meissonier — men  who 
trouble  themselves  little  about  grand 
prizes,  men  who  ai"e  reared  in  the  open 
air  under  the  rays  of  that  invisible  sun 
which  is  called — ^^''ocation. 

From  Rome  (whither  he  was  sent  to  be 
manufactured  into  a  great  musician)  Syl- 
vain Pons  brought  back  a  taste  for  an- 
tiquities and  beautiful  works  of  art.  He 
had  a  wonderful  amount  of  knowledge 
concerning  all  those  objects  (masterpieces 
of  the  hand  and  of  the  fancj")  which  have 
recently  acquired,  in  popular  parlance, 
the  collective  appellation  of  bric-a-bi'ac. 

Thus  then  it  came  to  pass  that,  in  the 
year  1810,  this  son  of  Euterpe  returned  to 
Paris,  an  enthusiastic  collector,  laden  with 
pictures  and  picture-frames,  statuettes, 
sculptures  in  ivory  and  wood,  enamels, 
china,  etc.  These  various  acquisitions, 
together  with  the  cost  of  their  carriage, 
had  absoi'bed  the  major  part  of  Pons's 
patrimony.  The  fortune  which  he  had  in- 
herited from  his  mother  he  had  spent  in 
a  similar  manner,  during  the  tour  which 
he  made  in  Italy,  after  the  exph'ation  of 
his  three  years'  official  residence  in  Rome. 
He  wished  to  pay  a  leisurely  visit  to 
Venice,  Milan,  Florence,  Bologna,  and 
Naples,  sojourning  in  each  of  those  cities 
as  a  dreamer  and  philosopher,  with  all 
the  heedlessness  of  an  artist  who  looks 
to  his  talent  for  a  livelihood,  just  as  a 
courtesan  coxmts  upon  her  beauty. 

During  tlijs  glorious  journey  Pons  was 
as  happy  as  a  man  can  be,  who,  while  full 


38 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


of  feeling'  and  of  delicacy,  is  debarred,  by 
his  excessive  plainness,  from  "success 
with  women  ' '  (to  use  the  phrase  current 
in  the  j^ear  of  grace  1809),  and  who  finds 
the  realities  of  life  altogether  inferior  to 
his  ideal. 

But  Pons  had  settled  in  his  ovra  mind 
how  to  deal  with  the  discord  that  existed 
between  the  pitch  of  his  heart  and  that 
of  the  external  world.  It  was,  doubt- 
lessly, in  this  correct  appreciation  of  the 
beautiful,  lying  pure  and  fresh  in  the  very 
depths  of  his  heart,  that  those  ingenious, 
subtle,  and  graceful  melodies,  which  earned 
for  him  the  reputation  that  he  enjoj'ed 
from  1810  to  1814,  had  their  source. 
When  any  one  becomes  famous  in  France, 
through  a  certain  vogue,  from  the  fashion 
of  the  hour,  from  the  ephemeral  follies  of 
the  metropolis,  lo !  up  springs  a  crop 
of  Ponses.  No  country  under  the  sun  is 
so  severe  toward  all  that  is  truly  great ; 
so  contemptuously  indulgent  toward  all 
that  is  really  little.  It  is  possible  that 
Pons,  though  quiclvly  overtaken  by  floods 
of  German  harmony  and  the  florid  fertility 
of  the  Rossinian  school,  maj',  even  so  late 
as  the  year  1824,  have  been  recognized  as 
an  agreeable  composer,  and  known  to 
fame  as  the  author  of  a  few  romances 
(his  last  productions  of  the  kind) ;  but 
judge  what  must  have  been  his  position 
in  1831 !  As  for  his  position  in  1844 — the 
year  that  ushered  in  the  one  single  stir- 
ring incident  of  his  obscure  existence— he 
was  then  reduced  to  the  value  of  an  ante- 
diluvian quaver.  In  that  .year,  although 
he  still  composed,  for  a  trifling  remuner- 
ation, divers  pieces  for  his  own  theater 
and  two  or  three  neighboring  theaters, 
Ms  very  existence  was  utterly  unknowh 
to  the  music-sellers. 

But  in  spite  of  this  neglect  the  worthy 
man  did  ample  justice  to  contemporary 
masters  of  his  art.  The  able  execution 
of  some  choice  morceaux  would  bring 
tears  to  his  eyes.  Yet  his  religious  en- 
thusiasm did  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Hoff- 
mann's Kreislers,  reach  the  verge  of  in- 
sanit3^ ;  Pons  veiled  his  raptures ;  his 
enjoj'ment,  like  that  of  the  Hashish-eater 
and  the  Theriaki,  was  pui%ly  internal. 
Now  the  genius  of  admiration,  of  com- 


prehension— the  only  faculty  that  renders 
an  ordinary  man  the  brother  of  a  great 
creator — is  so  rare  in  Paris  (where  idea 
succeeds  idea  as  traveler  succeeds  traveler 
at  an  inn)  that  Pons  has  a  claim  upon  our 
respectful  esteem.  The  worthy  fellow's 
faihire  may  appear  unnatural ;  but  he 
himself  candidly  admitted  his  weakness 
as  a  harmonist;  he  had  neglected  the 
study  of  counterpoint  ;  and  thus,  when, 
by  dint  of  renewed  application,  he  might 
have  maintained  his  rank  among  modern 
composers,  and  become  —  not  a  Rossini 
indeed,  but — a  Horold,  the  orchestration 
of  these  more  modern  times,  with  its 
measureless  development,  seemed  to  Pons 
to  be  beyond  his  reach.  Indeed,  he  found, 
in  the  pleasures  of  a  collector  of  curiosi- 
ties, so  vast  a  set-off  against  his  bank- 
ruptcy of  giory^  that,  had  he  been  com- 
pelled to  choose  between  the  possession 
of  his  curiosities  and  the  fame  of  Rossini, 
he  would  have  preferred — will  it  be  be- 
lieved ?• — his  darling  cabinet  !  In  forming 
his  collection,  the  old  composer  put  into 
practice  the  axiom  of  Chenavard,  that 
learned  collector  of  choice  engravings, 
who  maintained  that  one  can  derive  no 
pleasure  from  gazing  at  a  Ruysdael,  a 
Hobbema,  a  Holbein,  a  Raphael,  a  Mu- 
rillo,  a  Greuze,  a  Sebastian  del  Piombo, 
a  Giorgione  or  an  Albert  Durer,  if  the 
cost  of  its  purchase  exceeded  fifty  francs. 
Pons  did  not  recognize  the  possibility  of 
giving  more  than  a  hundred  francs  for 
any  object  whatever ;  and  to  induce  him 
to  give  even  fifty  francs  for  one,  it  must 
have  been  worth  at  least  three  thousand. 
The  most  beautiful  thing  in  the  world, 
if  its  pi'ice  amounted  to  three  hundred 
francs,  had  no  existence  for  Pons.  Pass- 
ing rare,  indeed,  had  been  his  opportuni- 
ties ;  but  the  three  essentials  to  success 
were  his.  He  had  the  legs  of  a  stag,  the 
leisure  of  the  Jldtieur,  and  the  patience  of 
the  Jew  ! 

This  system,  pursued  during  a  period 
of  forty  years,  not  at  Paris  only,  but  also 
at  Rome,  had  borne  fruit.  By  spending 
about  two  thousand  francs  on  bric-a-brac 
in  each  year  since  his  return  from  Rome, 
Pons  had  amassed  a  complete  collection 
of  masterpieces,  the  catalogue  of  which 


COUSIX    PONS. 


39 


reached  the  fabulous  fig-ure  1,907.  Be- 
tween 1811  and  1816,  in  the  course  of  his 
wanderings  through  Paris,  he  had  picked 
up,  for  ten  francs  apiece,  various  objects, 
each  of  which  would,  nowadays,  be  worth 
from  a  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  francs. 
His  collection  consisted  partly  of  pictures 
culled  from  among  the  forty-five  thousand 
which  are  annually  put  up  for  sale  in  the 
auction  rooms  of  Paris ;  partly  of  soft 
Sevres  porcelain  purchased  from  the  hardy 
children  of  Auvergne — those  satellites  of 
the  Bande-Noire  who  brought  the  marvels 
of  Pompadour-France  to  Paris  in  wagons. 
In  short.  Pons  had  collected  the  relics  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries ; 
doing  full  justice  to  the  talent  and  genius 
of  the  French  school,  to  the  Lepautres, 
the  Lavallee-Poussins,  etc. — those  Great- 
Unknowns,  who  created  the  stjle  Louis- 
Quinze  and  the  style  Louis-Seize,  and 
whose  works  form  the  basis  of  the  so- 
called  inventions  of  the  artists  of  to-day, 
who  are  to  be  seen  stooping  perpetuall}' 
over  the  treasures  of  the  Cabinet  des 
Estampes,  with  a  view  to  the  production 
of  original  works,  which  are  simply  — 
clever  imitations  ! 

For  many  of  his  knick-knacks  Pons  was 
indebted  to  those  exchanges  which  are  a 
source  of  unspeakable  delight  to  the  col- 
lector; for  the  pleasure  of  buying  curi- 
osities is,  after  all,  merely  a  secondary 
pleasure;  the  prime,  the  pi'incipal,  pleas- 
ure is,  to  barter  them.  Pons,  it  was,  who 
first  set  the  example  of  collecting  snuff- 
boxes and  miniatures  ;  but,  unknown  to 
fame  as  a  bric-a-brac-ologist  (for  he 
neither  attended  sales  nor  frequented 
the  shops  of  the  well-known  dealers),  he 
was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  marketable 
value  of  his  treasures. 

The  late  Dusommerard  had  done  his  ut- 
most to  strike  up  an  intimacy  with  the 
old  composer ;  but  the  prince  of  bric-a- 
brac  died  without  having  succeeded  in 
gaining-  access  to  the  Pons  Museum — the 
only  museum  that  will  bear  comparison 
with  the  celebrated  collection  of  M.  Sau- 
vageot,  between  whom  and  Pons  (as  be- 
tween their  respective  museums)  there 
were  certain  points  of  resemblance.  For 
M.  Sauvageot,  like  Pons,  was  a  musician 


of  limited  means,  who,  fired  by  Pons's 
love  of  art  and  Pons's  hatred  of  the  illus- 
trious plutocrats  who  form  cabinets  of 
antiquities  in  order  that  they  may  enter 
into  adroit  competition  with  the  regular 
dealers,  has  adopted  Pons's  system  and 
method  of  procedure.  For  all  these 
specimens  of  cunning  workmanship,  these 
miracles  of  industry.  Pons  (in  common 
with  his  rival,  his  competitor,  his  an- 
tagonist) cherished  in  his  heart  a  pas- 
sion insatiable  as  that  of  the  miser, 
strong  as  that  of  a  lover  for  a  beauti- 
ful mistress.  As  for  a  re-sale  in  the  auc- 
tion-rooms of  the  Rue  des  Jeuneurs,  under 
the  hammer  of  the  auctioneer,  </ia^  seemed 
to  Pons  to  amount  to  nothing  less  than 
the  crime  of  Lese-bric-a-brac  !  He  kept 
his  museum,  with  the  intention  of  deriv- 
ing^ from  it  hourly  pleasure ;  for  those 
minds  which  Nature  has  endowed  with 
the  power  of  admiring  great  works  of 
art,  possess  the  sublime  faculty  of  the 
genuine  lover.  The  object  of  their  pas- 
sion yields  to  them  the  self-same  pleasure 
yesterday,  to-daj-,  and  forever.  Satiet3' 
is  unknown  to  them  ;  and  masterpieces, 
fortunately,  are  perennially  j'oung. 

From  all  that  precedes,  the  reader  will 
gather  that  the  object  which  the  old  man 
was  carrying  with  such  paternal  care  was 
one  of  those  dazzling  "  finds  "'  which  we 
bear  off — with  how  much  rapture,  you, 
oh,  ye  amateurs !    understand  full  well ! 

At  the  first  outlines  of  this  biogi'aphical 
sketch,  every  reader  will  be  tempted  to 
exclaim  :  "Well,  in  spite  of  his  ugliness, 
this  must  be  the  happiest  fellow  in  the 
world."  And  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
a  mental  counter-irritant,  in  the  form  of 
a  mania,  is  a  sovereign  remedy  for  ennui 
and  the  spleen.  All  ye  who  can  no  longer 
drink  from  that  vessel  which  has  in  every 
age  been  termed  the  cup  of  pleasure, 
apply  yourselves  to  the  task  of  collecting 
— no  matter  what ;  even  postage-stamps 
have  been  collected — and  you  will  find  the 
solid  ingot  of  happiness  coined  into  small 
change.  A  mania  !  wiiv,  'tis  pleasure 
idealized  !  Do  not,  however,  envy  the 
worthy  Pons,  since  here,  as  in  all  kindred 
cases,  the  feeling  would  be  based  upon  a 
misconception. 


40 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


For  this  man,  who  was  the  very  incar- 
nation of  delicacy — this  man,  whose  moral 
being-  drew  its  only  sustenance  from  an  un- 
wearied admiration  of  the  finest  achieve- 
ments of  human  toil — thatg-lorioussti'ug-- 
g-le  with  the  forces  of  Nature — -was  the 
slave  of  that  sin  which,  of  all  the  seven 
deadly  sins,  God  Avill  surely  punish  with 
the  least  severitj^ :  Pons  was  a  gourmand. 
His  slender  means,  combined  with  his 
passion  for  bric-a-brac,  entailed  upon  him 
a  dietetic  regime  so  thoroughly  distaste- 
ful to  his  appreciative  palate  that  at  the 
out.set  the  old  bachelor  had  solved  the 
difficulty  by  dining-  out  every  day  of  his 
life.  Now,  in  the  days  of  the  Empire, 
celebrities,  either  on  account  of  their 
scarcitj"^  and  their  slender  political  pre- 
tensions or  for  some  other  reason,  were 
in  far  greater  request  than  they  are  in 
this  degenerate  age  ;  and  moreover,  it 
was  so  easy  to  achieve  reputation  as  a 
poet,  an  author,  or  a  musician,  then  ! 

In  those  days  Pons,  who  was  regarded 
as  a  proba'ble  rival  of  the  Nicolos,  the 
Paers  and  the  Bertons,  received  so  many 
invitations  that  he  was  compelled  to  jot 
them  down  in  a  memorandum-book,  just 
as  an  advocate  makes  a  note  of  the '  cases 
to  which  he  has  to  attend.  By  way  of 
supporting  his  character  as  an  artist. 
Pons  presented  copies  of  his  musical  ro- 
mances to  all  his  Amphitryons ;  played 
the  piano  for  them  ;  brought  them  tickets 
for  boxes  at  the  Feydeau  (one  of  the  thea- 
ters for  which  he  worked),  got  up  concerts 
at  their  houses,  and  would  sometimes — 
when  he  was  among  relatives — even  im- 
provise a  little  ball,  and  fiddle  for  the 
dancers  with  his  own  illustrious  fingers. 
Those  were  the  days  when  the  finest  men 
in  France  used  to  exchange  sword-cuts 
with  the  finest  men  of  the  coalition ;  hence 
Pons's  ugliness  passed  for  originality,  in 
accordance  with  the  grand  law  promul- 
gated by  Moliijre  in  the  famous  couplet 
that  he  has  pvit  into  the  mouth  of  Eliante. 
When  Pons  had  rendered  a  service  to  some 
fine  ivoman,  he  would  sometimes  hear 
himself  styled  "a  charming  man;"  but 
that  phrase  was  the  Ultima  Thule  of  his 
good  fortune. 

During  this  phase  of  his  existence — a 


phase  that  lasted  for  about  six  yeai's — 
that  is  to  say,  from  1810  till  181G— Pons 
contracted  the  fatal  habit  of  dining  well, 
at  the  expense  of  hosts  who  never  counted 
cost,  who  procured  first  fruits  for  him, 
uncorked  for  him  their  choicest  wines,  set 
before  him  the  most  exquisite  desserts, 
cofl'ee  and  liqueurs,  and,  in  short,  treated 
him  as  hosts  did  treat  their  guests  under 
the  Empire,  that  epoch  when  many  a 
private  household  imitated  the  splendor 
of  the  Idngs  and  queens  of  whom  Paris 
was  then  full,  even  to  overflowing.  For 
in  those  days  it  was  the  fashion  to  play 
at  the  game  of  royalty  just  as  it  is  now 
the  fashion  to  play  at  the  game  of  Par- 
liament, by  creating  a  host  of  societies 
with  their  presidents,  vice-presidents,  and 
secretaries  ;  such  as  the  Flax  Societj^,  the 
Viniculturai  Society,  the  Sericicultural 
Society,  the  Agricultural  Society,  the 
Industrial  Society,  and  so  forth ;  until 
at  length  the  craze  has  risen  to  such  a 
pitch  that  we  are  actually  on  the  hunt  for 
social  evils,  in  order  that  we  may  form 
the  doctors  of  those  evils  into  a  society  ! 
A  stomach  trained  as  Pons's  stomach 
had  been  trained,  exercises  an  inevitable 
influence  on  the  moral  natui-e  of  a  man, 
and  corrupts  him  in  direct  proportion  to 
tlie  proficiency'  of  his  stomach  in  things 
culinary.  Sensuality,  lurking  in  every 
corner  of  the  heart,  holds  undisputed 
sway,  boldly  combats  the  dictates  of  the 
will,  drowns  the  voice  of  honor,  and  in- 
sists, at  all  costs,  on  the  satisfaction  of 
its  cravings.  No  pen  has  ever  yet  de- 
scribed the  exactions  of  the  gullet ;  under 
the  specious  guise  of  the  necessity  of  sup- 
porting life,  they  escape  the  cj'e  of  liter- 
ary criticism.  Yet  the  number  of  persons 
who  have  been  ruined  by  the  table  is  in- 
calculable. From  this  point  of  view  the 
table,  at  Paris,  is  the  rival  of  the  court- 
esan. The  former  represents  income,  and 
the  latter  expenditure.  When  Pons,  de- 
clining as  his  reputation  declined,  sunk 
from  the  position  of  an  ever-welcome 
guest  to  that  of  a  mere  parasite,  he  found 
himself  unable  to  exchange  the  well-spread 
board  for  the  Spartan  broth  of  an  eigh- 
teen-pennj'  eating-house.  Unhappy  wight! 
He  shuddered  at  the  thought  that  his  in- 


COUSIX    POXS. 


41 


dependence  could  be  secured  only  at  so 
great  a  sacrifice.  He  felt  that,  leather 
than  foreg'o  his  habitual  good-cheer,  the 
re.ifular  succession  of  each  "earliest  arri- 
val "  in  the  market,  the  delicate  and  dain- 
ty little  dishes,  in  short,  which  (to  employ 
a  vulgar  but  expressive  term)  he  was  ac- 
customed to  guzzle,  he  was  capable  of 
making  the  meanest  concessions.  True 
bird  of  plunder,  flying  away  when  his 
crop  was  full,  and  warbling  an  air  by  Avay 
of  thanks.  Pons  even  found  a  certain 
pleasure  in  living  well  at  the  expense  of 
that  society'  which  demanded  of  him — 
what?  Empty  compliments.  Like  all 
bachelors  who  hate  their  own  domiciles, 
and  pass  their  lives  in  the  domiciles  of 
others.  Pons  was  well  versed  in  those 
conventional  forms  and  social  grimaces 
which,  in  the  world,  pass  muster  for  sen- 
timents, and  he  would  tender  compliments 
as  a  sort  of  small  change.  Persons  he 
judged  as  if  they  had  been  sacks  with 
labels  on  them ;  he  trusted  implicit^  to 
the  label,  and  thrust  no  curious  hand 
into  the  sack. 

This  \evy  tolerable  state  of  affairs  lasted 
for  a  decade.  But  what  a  decade  it  was ! 
It  was  a  rainy  autumn,  throug-hout  the 
whole  of  which  Pons,  by  dint  of  rendering 
himself  indispensable  in  all  the  houses 
that  he  frequented,  contrived  to  dine 
gratis.  But  it  was  a  sinister  career  on 
which  he  embarked  when  he  began  to  un- 
dertake the  execution  of  innumerable  com- 
missions and  to  discharge,  many  a  time 
and  oft,  the  functions  of  a  hall  porter  or 
a  domestic  servant.  Repeatedly  intrusted 
with  the  carrying  out  of  purchases,  he 
became  the  spy — of  one  family  upon  an- 
other. Yet  his  manifold  journeys  and 
meannesses  procured  him  no  credit  what- 
ever. "Pons  is  a  bachelor"  (so  the 
phrase  would  run),  "  and  doesn't  know 
what  on  earth  to  do  with  his  time  ;  he's 
only  too  glad  to  trot  to  and  fro  for  us. 
But  for  that  what  wo%ild  become  of 
him?" 

Nor  was  the  chill  that  old  age  diffuses 
around  it  slow  in  setting  in.  'Tis  a  con- 
tagious east  wind,  producing  its  depress- 
ing effects  upon  the  moral  temperature, 
especially  when  the  old  man,  who  biings 


the  chill  with  him,  is  poor  and  plain.  For 
to  be  old  and  poor  and  plain — is  not  that 
a  threefold  poverty  ?  This,  then,  was  the 
winter  of  Pons's  life — \\inter,  red-nosed 
winter,  with  its  pallid  cheeks  and  multi- 
form numbnesses. 

From  1S3G  tUl  1S43  the  invitations  ad- 
dressed to  Pons  were  few  and  far  between. 
The  families  which  still  admitted  him  to 
their  tables,  far  from  courting  the  society 
of  the  parasite,  now  merely  tolerated  it, 
just  as  we  tolerate  a  tax ;  while  as  to 
giving  Pons  any  credit  for  his  services — 
even  for  his  substantial  services — no  one 
ever  even  dreamed  of  such  a  thing.  ITie 
family  circles,  in  which  the  old  man's 
orbit  lay,  had  no  respect  whatever  for 
the  Arts,  worshiped  nothing  save  tangi- 
ble results,  and  valued  those  things — and 
those  things  only — which  they  had  won 
for  themselves  since  the  Revolution  of 
July  ;  in  other  words,  wealth  and  a  con- 
spicuous social  position.  Now,  since  Pons 
was  deficient  in  that  elevation  of  mind 
and  manner  which  inspires  the  bourgeois 
bosom  with  respectful  fear,  he  had  now, 
naturally  enough,  sunk  some  degrees  be- 
low zero,  though  without  becoming  an 
object  of  absolute  contempt.  Keen  indeed 
was  the  torture  to  which  he  was  exposed 
in  the  bourgeois  circle  that  he  frequented; 
but,  like  all  timid  persons,  he  concealed 
his  sufferings,  and  finally  acquired  a  habit 
of  suppressing  his  feelings  and  turning' 
his  heart  into  a  kind  of  sanctuary  wherein 
he  would  take  refuge.  Now  this  is  a 
phenomenon  which  many  supei-ficial  jier- 
sons  translate  by  the  word  egotism,  and 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  resemblance 
between  the  hermit  and  the  egotist  is 
sufficient^  striking  to  give  these  calum- 
niators a  show  of  reason  as  against  the 
man  of  feeUng  ;  especially  at  Paris,  where 
the  citizen  of  the  world  obsei-ves  nothing, 
where  all  is  rapid  as  the  rolling  wave, 
and  fleeting  as — a  Ministry  ! 

Thus  then  it  happened  that  on  the  in- 
dictment—the retrospective  indictment — 
for  egotism  preferred  against  him,  Cousin 
Pons  was  found  guilty ;  for  societj-,  in  the 
long  run,  invariably  convicts  those  whom 
it  has  once  accused.  Is  it  possible  to 
gauge   the  crushing  influence  upon  tha 


42 


THE    HUM  AX    COMEDY. 


timid  of  undeserved  disfavor  ?  Who  can 
hope  to  succeed  in  painting  the  misfort- 
unes of  Timidity?  This  situation— a  sit- 
uation which,  day  hy  daj',  was  growing 
worse  —  will  account  for  the  dejection 
stamped  upon  the  features  of  this  poor 
musician,  who  was  living  upon  conces- 
sions that  were  most  degrading'.  Still, 
every  hase  compliance  extorted  by  a  pas- 
sion from  its  subject  is  a  bond  of  union; 
the  greater  its  demands,  the  stronger  are 
the  links  that  bind  j-ou  to  it;  ever^'  sacri- 
fice 3'ou  make  tends  to  form  a  negative, 
imaginary  hoard  which  looks  to  you.  like 
untold  wealth.  When  some  bourgeois, 
spacious  in  the  possession  of — stupidity — 
had  bestowed  upon  Pons  a  glance  of  inso- 
lent patronage,  how  revengefully  would 
the  old  musician  sip  his  glass  of  port, 
and  roll  the  quail  cm  gratin  -on  his 
tongue,  with  the  muttered  reflection : 
"After  all,  I  have  not  paid  for  this  too 
dearly!" 

Still,  even  in  this  existence,  the  eye  of 
the  moralist  will  detect  some  extenuating 
circumstances.  A  certain  amount  of  satis- 
fied desire  is  essential  to  the  sustenance 
of  life.  A  passionless  man,  the  just  man 
made  perfect,  is  "  a  faultless  monster," 
a  semi-angel  with  undeveloped  wings. 
Angels  are  all  head  in  the  Catholic  mj-- 
thologj^ ;  but  here  on  earth  the  just  man 
made  perfect  is  that  InsulTerable  Grandi- 
son,  for  whom  the  Venus  of  the  crossways 
would  find  herself  unsexed.  Now,  if  we 
except  the  few  commonplace  adventures 
that  Pons  had  met  with  In  the  course  of 
his  Italian  tour — adventures  that  ought 
to  be  ascribed  to  climatic  inflLiences — he 
had  never  encountered  a  woman's  favor- 
ing smile;  such,  indeed,  is  the  funereal 
destiny  of  manj^  a  man  ;  but,  as  for  Pons, 
he  was  a  monster  from  his  very  birth ! 
This  artist  with  the  tender  heart,  who  was 
so  prone  to  reveiie  and  so  full  of  delicacy-, 
finding  himself  thus  doomed  to  play  the 
part  imposed  upon  him  by  his  features, 
resigned  all  hope  of  ever  being  loved.  To 
him  celibacy  was  a  matter  of  necessity 
rather  than  of  choice.  Good  living,  then 
— that  vice  of  virtuous  monks — held  out 
her  arms  to  him,  and  he  rushed  to  her 
embrace  with  the  same  headlong  alacrity 


that  he  liad  shown  in  devoting  himself  to 
art,  and  in  his  worship  of  music.  What 
woman  is  to  other's,  good  cheer  and  bric- 
a-brac  were  to  Pons ;  for  as  to  music, 
music  was  his  bread-winner;  and  find  me, 
if  you  can,  the  man  who  loves  thfc  calling 
whereby  he  lives.  In  the  long  run  'tis 
with  a  profession  as  it  is  with  marriage  : 
we  end  hy  being  sensible  only  to  its  draw- 
backs. 

Brillat-Savarin  has  deliberately  vindi- 
cated the  passion  of  the  epicure ;  but 
perhaps  he  has  failed  to  lay  sufficient 
stress  upon  the  real  pleasure  M'hicli  we 
experience  at  the  dinner-table.  Digestion, 
by  calling  into  play  all  the  forces  of  the 
human  frame,  becomes,  as  it  Avere,  an  in- 
ternal combat  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
gastrolater,  is  on  a  level  with  the  intensest 
joj's  of  love.  So  vast  is  the  demand  made 
upon  the  vital  energies  by  the  process  of 
digestion,  that  the  brain  is  obliterated  for 
the  benefit  of  that  second  brain  which  has 
its  seat  in  the  diaphragm,  and  intoxica- 
tion ensues  from  the  sheer  inactivity'  of 
all  the  faculties.  The  boa-constrictor,  for 
example,  that  has  swallowed  a  bull,  is  so 
completely  drunk  that  it  will  passivgiA' 
allow  itself  to  be  killed  ;  and  where  is  the 
man  past  iovty  who  dares  to  work  after 
dinner  ?  Accordingl3',  all  great  men  have 
been  abstemious.  Invalids  in  a  state  of 
convalescence  after  a  severe  illness,  to 
whom  we  are  obliged  to  administer  nig- 
gardly rations  of  carefully  selected  food, 
must  have  frequently  expei'ienced  the 
species  of  stomach-drunkenness  that  a 
single  chicken's  wing  will  produce.  The 
prudiMit  Pons,  whose  sole  sensual  delight 
was  centered  in  the  play  of  the  gastric 
juices,  was  habitually  in  the  condition  of 
these  convalescent  invalids.  He  exacted 
from  good  cheer  all  the  sensations  that  it 
can  bestow  ;  and,  up  to  the  date  of  which 
Ave  are  speaking,  he  had  enjoyed  them 
every  day.  But  no  one  can  bid  farewell 
to  a  habit.  Many  a  suicide  has  paused  on 
the  very  threshold  of  death,  at  the  thought 
of  the  cafe  to  which  he  resorts  for  his 
nightly  game  of  dominoes. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


43 


III. 

THE  PAIR  OF  NUT-CRACKERS. 

In  1835  chance  compensated  Pons  for 
the  indifference  of  tlie  fair  sex  by  furnish- 
ing: hiui  with  what,  in  colloquial  phrase- 
oloft-y,  is  termed  "an  old  man's  walking-- 
stick."  In  that  year  this  old  fellow — who 
had  been  born  old — found  in  friendship  a 
staff  of  life,  and  contracted  a  matrimonial 
alliance  of  that  sort  from  which,  and  from 
which  alone,  social  arrangements  did  not 
exclude  him  ;  he  married  an  old  man  who, 
like  Pons  himself,  was  a  musician.  But 
for  the  existence  of  La  Fontaine's  divine 
fable,  this  sketch  would  have  been  en- 
titled "The  Two  Friends."  So  to  have 
entitled  it,  however,  would  have  amounted 
to  a  literary  crime — to  a  sacrileg-e  from 
which  every  genuine  man  of  letters  must 
needs  recoil.  The  masterpiece  of  our 
French  ^sop — a  masterpiece  which  is 
at  once  the  outpouring-  of  his  heart  and 
the  storj'  of  his  dreams,  deserves  the  ex- 
clusive right  of  bearing  that  title  forever. 
Y«s,  the  page  on  which  the  poet  has  en- 
graved these  three  words,  "  The  Two 
Friends,"  is  one  of  those  inviolable  do- 
mains— a  temple  as  it  were — which  gen- 
eration after  generation  will  enter  with 
respect,  and  the  whole  world  will  visit  as 
long  as  typography  endures. 

Pons's  friend  was  a  pianoforte  teacher. 
His  mode  of  life  and  his  habits'  chimed  in 
with  those  of  Pons  so  well  that  the  latter 
used  to  say  that,  unfortunately  for  his 
happiness,  he  had  met  his  friend  too  late ; 
for  their  acquaintanceship,  which  had 
been  struck  up  at  a  prize-distribution  in 
some  young  ladies'  school,  did  not  date 
further  back  than  the  j-ear  1834.  Never, 
perhaps,  had  two  such  congenial  spirits 
met  upon  the  wide  ocean  of  humanitj' — 
that  ocean  whose  earliest  waters  welled 
up  in  the  terrestrial  paradise,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  will  of  God.  In  a  very  short 
time  the  two  musicians  became  indispen- 
sable one  to  the  other.  In  the  space  of 
eight  days,  mutual  confidences  made 
them,  as  it  were,  a  pair  of  brothers — in 
short,  previously  to  this  time  Schmucke 
no  more  believed  in  the  existence  of  such 


a  person  as  Schmucke  than  Schmucke  be- 
lieved in  the  existence  of  such  a  person  as 
Pons. 

We  have  already  said  enough  to  de- 
scribe these  two  worthies ;  but  since  there 
are  intellects  that  have  no  taste  for  syn- 
thetical conciseness,  a  brief  demonstration 
is  necessary  to  convince  the  unbelieving. 

This  pianist,  then,  like  everj'  other  pian- 
ist, was  a  German ;  just  as  the  great 
Listz  and  the  great  Mendelssohn  are  Ger- 
mans ;  just  as  Steibelt,  Mozart  and  Dus- 
scck,  Meyer,  Doelher,  Thalberg,  Hiller, 
Leopold  Mayer,  Crammer,  Zimmerman, 
and  Kalkbrenner  are  Germans ;  just  as 
Hertz,  Woetz,  Karr,  Wolff,  Pixis,  Clara 
Wieck,  and — to  be  more  specific — just  as 
all  Germans  are  Germans.  Now,  although 
Schmucke  was  a  great  composer,  he  could 
not  rise  above  the  rank  of  a  teacher  of 
music ;  for  the  audacity  necessary  to  a 
man  of  genius  who  would  make  his  mark 
was  entirely  foreign  to  Schmucke's  dis- 
position. The  simplicity  which  charac- 
terizes many  Germans  is  not  continu- 
ous ;  it  is  intermittent.  When  they  have 
reached  a  certain  age,  the  naivete  they 
then  exhibit  is  drawn  from  the  som-ces 
that  supplied  their  youth  (much  as  water 
is  supplied  to  a  canal),  and  is  employed 
to  irrigate  their  successes,  artistic,  scien- 
tific, or  pecuniary — in  fact,  they  use  it  as 
a  shield  to  protect  them  fi'om  suspicion. 
In  France,  certain  cunning  folks  adopt 
the  stupidity  of  the  "Parisian  grocer  as  a 
substitute  for  this  German  simplicity. 
But  as  for  Schmucke,  he  had  really  re- 
tained all  the  artlessness  of  his  childhood, 
just  as  Pons  retained,  in  his  attire,  the 
relics  of  the  imperial  epoch — that  is  to 
saj',  quite  unconsciously. 

This  true  and  noble  German  was  per- 
former and  audience,  both  in  one.  He 
played  to  and  for  himself.  He  lived  in 
Paris  just  as  a  nightingale  dwells  in  its 
forest ;  and  for  a  space  of  twenty  years 
sung  on — sole  member  of  his  tribe — until 
the  moment  when  he  encountered  Pons 
and  found  in  him  a  second  self.  (See 
"Une  Fille  d'Eve.") 

Pons  and  Schmucke  liad  a  copious  and 
an  equal  store  of  that  childish  senti- 
mentalitv  which  distinguishes  the   Ger- 


44 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


mans.  They  both  had  a  passion  for 
flowers ;  they  both  felt  for  natural 
scenery'  that  admiration  which  induces 
the  children  of  the  Fatherland  to  plant 
their  g-ardens  with  big'  bottles,  to  reflect, 
in  miniature,  tlie  landscape  which  lies  as 
larg-e  as  life  under  their  very  eyes.  Both 
Schmucke  and  Pons  had  that  propensitj^ 
for  investig'ation  which  leads  the  German 
savant  to  undertake — in  his  g-aiters  ! — a 
journey  of  a  hundred  leag'ues  in  order  to 
verify  a  fact  that  stares  him  in  the  face, 
from  the  margin  of  the  well  beneath  the 
courtyard  jasmine.  And  lastly,  both  of 
them  exhibited  that  passion  for  attaching 
a  psychical  sig'niflcance  to  the  veriest  tri- 
fles in  creation  which  gives  birth  to  the 
inexplicable  works  of  John  Paul  Richter, 
the  drunken  revels  that  Hoffman  has  com- 
mitted to  print,  and  the  folio  fences  with 
which  a  German  will  encumber  the  very 
simplest  questions,  delving  down  into  the 
profoundest  depths,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  all  that  we  can  discover  is — a  Ger- 
man !  Pons  and  Schmucke  were  both  good 
Catholics ;  they  accompanied  each  other 
to  mass  regularly,  and  went  through  the 
routine  of  their  religious  duties  like  a 
couple  of  children  who  never  had  to  un- 
burden their  consciences  to  their  confes- 
sor. They  implicitly  believed  that  music 
-^the  lang'uag'e  of  heaven — bore  to  ideas 
and  sentiments  the  same  relation  that 
ideas  and  sentiments  bear  to  ordinary 
speech  ;  and  interminable  were  the  con- 
versations which,  putting  their  theory 
into  practice,  the  two  old  men  held  ^dth 
one  another,  talking  to  each  other  in 
amoebcean  orgies  of  music,  in  order,  after 
the  manner  of  lovers,  to  demonstrate,  one 
to  another,  that  of  which  they  were  al- 
ready entirely  convinced.  Schmucke  was 
as  thoroug-hly  absent-minded  as  Pons 
was  observant;  if  Pons  was  a  collector, 
Schmucke  was,  as  certainly,  a  dreamer; 
if  Pons  rescued  beautiful  objects  belong-- 
ing  to  the  world  of  matter,  Schmucke 
studied  the  beauties  that  belong  to  the 
world  of  mind.  Pons  would  have  espied 
and  purchased  a  porcelain  cup  ere 
Schmucke,  musing  on  some  strain  .from 
Rossini,  Bellini,  Beethoven,  or  Mozart, 
and  ransacking  the  world  of  sentiment 


for  the  origin  or  the  counterpart  of  the 
musical  phrase  that  was  running-  in  his 
head,  had  g-ot  through  the  operation  of 
blowing-  his  nose.  But  Schmucke,  the 
thrifty  dreamer,  whose  savings  were  at 
the  mercy  of  his  mental  distraction,  and 
Pons,  whose  passion  made  him  prodigal, 
were  both  landed  in  the  same  predicament, 
on  the  thirty -first  of  December.  St.  Sylves- 
ter's day  in  each  revolving-  year  always 
.surprised  them,  both  with  empty  purses. 
It  is  possible  that,  but  for  this  friend- 
ship. Pons  -would  have  succumbed  to  his 
afflictions ;  but  so  soon  as  he  found  a 
heart  into  which  he  could  pour  his  sor- 
rows, life  became  endurable  to  him.  The 
first  time  that  he  bi-eathed  his  troubles 
into  Schmucke's  ear,  the  worthy  German 
advised  him  to  live,  as  he  himself  lived, 
on  bread  and  cheese,  at  home,  rather 
than  g-o  out  and  eat  dinners  which  cost 
him  so  dear.  Alas  !  Pons  did  not  venture 
to  confess  to  Schmucke  that,  in  his  org-an- 
ism,  heart  and  stomach  were  at  war; 
that  his  stomach  readilj^  tolerated  that 
which  tortured  his  heart ;  and  that,  cost 
what  it  might,  he  must  have  a  g-ood  din- 
ner to  relish,  just  as  a  man  of  gallantry 
must  have  a  mistress  to  torment.  It  took 
Schmucke  some  time  to  gain  a  thoroug-h 
knowledge  of  Pons's  character  ;  for 
Schmucke  <vas  too  intensely  German 
to  possess  that  rapidity  of  observation 
which  stamps  the  Frenchman  ;  but  when, 
at  length,  Schmucke  did  understand  his 
friend,  he  loved  the  poor  fellow  all  the 
more  on  account  of  his  failing- — in  fact, 
there  is  no  stronger  bond  of  friendship 
than  for  one  of  two  friends  to  believe 
himself  superior  to  the  other.  Not  even 
an  angel  could  have  breathed  a  word  of 
disapprobation  at  the  sight  of  Schmucke 
rubbing-  his  hands  when  he  discovered 
how  firm  a  hold  the  love  of  good  living 
had  gained  upon  his  friend  Pons.  In  fact, 
on  the  very  next  morning-  after  this  dis- 
covery, the  worthy  German  added  to  the 
ordinary  breakfast  sundry'  dainties,  which 
he  himself  had  brought  in,  and  continued 
to  provide  his  friend  with  fresh  ones 
every  day ;  for,  since  Pons  and  Schmucke 
had  foregathered,  they  breakfasted  to- 
gether in  their  own  lodgings. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


45 


To  suppose  that  the  two  friends  had 
escaped  that  Parisian  ridicule  which  never 
yet  spared  anything  or  anybody,  would 
argue  a  complete  ignorance  of  Paris. 
Schmucke  and  Pons,  in  uniting  their 
riches  and  their  poverty,  had  conceived 
the  economical  idea  of  Uving  together; 
and  each  paid  a  moiety  of  the  rent  of  a 
set  of  apartments  which  were  very  un- 
equally divided  between  them.  Their 
rooms  formed  a  part  of  a  quiet  house  in 
the  quiet  Rue  de  Normandie,  in  the  Ma- 
rais.  As  they  often  went  out  together, 
and  strolled  side  by  side  along  the  same 
boulevards,  the  idlers  of  the  quarter  had 
nicknamed  them  "  The  Pair  of  Nut-Crack- 
ers." This  sobriquet  renders  it  superflu- 
ous to  paint  the  portrait  of  Schmucke 
here  ;  he  was  to  Pons  what  the  Nurse 
of  Niobe  (the  celebrated  statue  in  the 
Vatican)  is  to  the  Venus  of  the  Tribune. 

Madame  Cibot,  the  portress  of  this 
house,  was  the  pivot  of  "  The  Pair  of  Nut- 
Crackers;  "  but  so  important  is  the  part 
she  plays  in  the  drama  which  terminated 
in  the  dissolution  of  this  twin  existence, 
that  it  is  better  to  reserve  her  portrait 
till  the  moment  when  she  enters  on  the 
scene. 

That  which  remains  to  be  said  about 
the  moral  nature  of  these  two  beings,  is  of 
a  character  less  readily  to  be  compre- 
hended than  anything  which  has  gone 
before,  by  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
readers,  in  the  forty-ninth  year  of  this 
nineteenth  century.  This  comparative 
incomprehensibility  may  be  attributed  to 
the  prodigious  development  of  the  finan- 
cial element  in  human  nature — a  develop- 
ment due  to  the  introduction  of  railways. 
Now  what  remains  to  be  said  is  but  little ; 
yet  is  it  highly  important.  In  fact,  the 
problem  is,  to  convey  to  the  mind  of  the 
reader  an  adequate  idea  of  the  extreme 
sensitiveness  of  these  two  hearts ;  and 
here  let  us  borrow  an  illustration  from 
the  railways — -wei-e  it  only  by  way  of 
recouping  the  capital  which  thej'  are  con- 
stantly borrowing  from  us. 

The  trains  which  we  are  now  accus- 
tomed to  see,  speeding  along  their  iron 
roads,  grind  to  powder,  in  their  progress, 
minute  particles  of  gravel.    Now  let  such 


a  minute  particle — a  particle  too  minute 
for  a  pas.seng-er  to  see — be  introduced  into 
his  renal  system,  and  he  will  experience 
the  pangs  of  that  most  frightful  malady, 
the  gravel,  which  is  often  fatal.  Now 
that  identical  particle  which,  to  our  ex- 
isting body  social,  traveling  along  its 
metallic  path,  with  all  the  rapidity  of  a 
locomotive,  is  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
imperceptible  atom  of  gravel,  causing  no 
appreciable  annoyance,  generated  in  Pons 
and  Schmucke,  who  were  incessantly  ex- 
posed to  its  irritating  influence,  a  kind  of 
gravel  of  the  heart.  Sensitive,  in  the  ex- 
treme, to  the  sufferings  of  others,  each  of 
these  two  poor  creatures  wept  over  his 
inability'  to  aid  ;  while,  in  regard  to  his 
own  feelings,  each  of  them  was  acutely, 
almost  morbidly,  susceptible.  Neither 
old  age,  nor  the  continual  spectacles  pre- 
sented by  the  drama  of  Parisian  life — in 
short,  nothing,  had  had  power  to  harden 
these  two  pure,  fresh,  and  child  -  like 
hearts.  The  longer  they  lived,  the  more 
keen  became  their  personal  sufferings. 
Thus  it  is  (alas  that  thus  it  should  be  !) 
with  uncorrupted  natures,  with  tranquil 
thinkers,  and  with  genuine  poets,  who 
have  held  themselves  aloof  from  all  excess. 

Since  the  time  when  these  two  old  men 
had  set  up  their  tents  together,  they  had 
imported  into  their  occupations  (which 
were  almost  identical)  the  harmony  of 
movement  that  marks  the  paces  of  a  pair 
of  Pai'isian  hacks.  Winter  and  summer, 
Pons  and  Schmucke  rose  at  seven  o'clock, 
and,  breakfast  over,  sallied  forth  to  give 
the  usual  lessons  in  the  schools  which  thej' 
served,  where  thej'  supplied  each  other's 
place,  in  case  of  need.  Toward  noon,  if 
his  presence  were  required  at  a  rehearsal. 
Pons  would  wend  his  way  to  his  theater  ; 
but  all  his  leisure  moments  were  devoted 
to  fldnerie.  Then,  in  the  evening,  the 
two  friends  would  meet  at  the  theater, 
where  Pons  had  found  a  berth  for 
Schmucke,  after  this  wise : 

When  Pons  and  Schmucke  first  met 
each  other,  Pons  had  just  obtained,  with- 
out even  asking  for  it,  that  field-marshars 
baton  of  obscure  composers — a  conduct- 
or's wand.  It  had  been  conferred  upon 
the  poor  musician  through  the  influence 


46 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


of  Count  Popiiiot — tlien  a  Minister — at 
the  time  when  that  bourgeois  hero  of  the 
Revolution  of  July  procured  a  theatrical 
license  for  one  of  those  friends,  the  sight 
of  whom  bring's  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of 
the  successful  adventurer,  when,  as  he 
rolls  along  in  his  carriage,  he  espies  some 
companion  of  his  youth,  a  poor  pedestrian, 
strapless  and  down  at  heel,  clad  in  a  coat 
of  problematical  hue,  and  embarked  in 
speculations  altogether  too  vast  for  his 
diminished  capital.  This  friend  of  Count 
Popinot's,  a  quondam  commercial  trav- 
eler, had,  in  by -gone  days,  rendered  im- 
portant services  to  the  celebrated  firm  of 
Popinot ;  and  Anselm  Popinot,  who,  after 
being  twice  a  Minister,  was  now  a  count 
and  a  peer  of  France,  not  only  acknowl- 
edged the  Illustrious  Gaudissard,  but,  bet- 
ter still,  resolved  to  place  the  former  bag- 
man in  a  position  to  renew  his  wardrobe 
and  replenish  his  purse ;  for  the  heart  of 
the  whilom  druggist  had  not  been  cor- 
rupted, either  by  political  life  or  the  vani- 
ties of  the  court  of  the  Citizen  King. 
Gaudissard,  who  was  still,  as  of  yore,  de- 
voted to  the  ladies,  asked  that  the  license 
of  a  theater,  then  in  a  state  of  insolvency, 
might  be  transferred  to  him ;  and  the 
Minister,  while  acceding  to  his  request, 
took  care  to  send  him  certain  aged  ad- 
mirers of  the  fair  sex,  wealth^'-  enough  to 
form  a  bod^'  of  substantfal  sleeping  part- 
ners, with  a  passion  for  feminine  attrac- 
tions. The  name  of  Pons,  who  was  a 
constant  guest  at  the  Hotel  Popinot,  was 
inserted  in  the  license ;  and  when,  in  the 
year  1834,  the  association,  of  which  Gau- 
dissard was  the  leading  member,  and 
which,  by  the  way,  made  a  fortune,  em- 
braced the  notion  of  realizing,  upon  the 
boulevard,  that  grand  idea,  an  opera  for 
the  people,  it  was  found  that  the  ballet- 
music  and  the  incidental  music  of  the 
fair^'^  pieces  required  a  tolerable  con- 
ductor, endowed  with  some  slight  talent 
as  a  composer  :  so  Pons  became  the  leader 
of  the  orchestra.  Now  the  management 
which  preceded  the  Gaudissard  partner- 
ship had  been  too  long  in  a  state  of 
bankruptcy'  to  boast  a  copyist.  So  Pons 
introduced  Schmucke  to  the  theater,-  in 
the    capacity   of    superintendent    of    the 


scores — an  obscure  post,  which  demands, 
however,  a  sound  knowledge  of  music. 
Acting  on  the  advice  of  Pons,  Schmucke 
concluded,  with  the  chief  of  the  corre- 
sponding department  at  the  Opera-Co 
mique,  an  arrangement  whereby  the  old 
German  escaped  the  purely  mechanical 
part  of  the  work. 

Wonderful  were  the  results  produced  by 
the  co-operation  of  Schmucke  and  Pons. 
Schmucke,  whose  strong  point,  like  that 
of  all  Germans,  was  harmony,  looked  after 
the  instrumentation  of  the  pieces,  to  which 
Pons  supplied  the  airs.  Yet,  though  the 
fresh  unhackneyed  beautj'  of  certain  mor- 
ceaux,  which  served  as  an  accompaniment 
to  two  or  three  successful  plays,  made  a 
forcible  impression  on  the  connoisseurs, 
the  word  progress  furnished  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  the  phenomenon ;  they 
never  inquired  the  names  of  the  compos- 
ers :  so  Pons  and  Schmucke  were  merged 
in  glory,  just  as  some  persons  are  drowned 
in  their  own  baths.  Now  at  Paris,  espe- 
cially since  1830,  no  one  can  succeed  with- 
out elbowing  quibuscunque  viis,  and  with 
no  gentle  violence,  a  most  formidable  co- 
hort of  competitors ;  no  ordinary  strength 
of  loin  will  serve  your  turn  ;  and  as  for  our 
two  friends,  they  were  sutTering  from  that 
gravel  of  the  heart  which  clogs  all  ambi- 
tious efforts. 

As  a  general  rule.  Pons  did  not  make 
his  appearance  in  the  orchestra  of  his 
theater  till  about  eight  o'clock — the  hour 
at  which  the  pieces  that  draw  commence, 
and  demand  the  despotic  rule  of  the  baton 
for  their  overtures  and  incidental  music. 
This  indulgence  exists  in  most  of  the  minor 
theaters ;  but  Pons's  disinterestedness,  in 
all  his  dealings  with  the  managers,  was 
such,  that  he  could  well  afford  to  take 
matters  easily.  Schnmcke,  moreover,  was 
always  ready,  in  any  emergency,  to  take 
the  place  of  Pons. 

As  time  rolled  on,  Schmucke's  position 
in  the  orchestra  had  gained  stability.  The 
Illustrious  Gaudissard  had  tacitly  recog- 
nized the  usefulness  of  Pons's  collaborator; 
and  since  a  piano  had  now  become  a  sine 
qud  non  in  the  orchestra  of  a  theater  of 
any  pretensions,  a  piano  was  introduced 
and  placed  near  to  the  conductor's  desk ; 


COUSIN    PONS. 


47 


in  that  spot  Schmucke — a  spontaneous 
supernumerary  —  installed  himself,  and 
plaj'ed  the  instrument  gratis.  When 
once  the  character  of  this  unambitious 
and  unassuming  old  German  was  known, 
all  tl\e  musicians  accepted  him  without  a 
murmur ;  and  thereupon  the  manager 
gave  Schmucke  a  small  salary  for  pre- 
siding over  those  instruments,  which, 
though  often  necessary',  are  not  to  be 
found  in  the  orchestras  of  the  boulevard 
theaters — such  instruments,  for  example, 
as  the  piano,  the  viola,  the  English  horn, 
the  violoncello,  the  harp,  the  Spanish 
castanets,  the  bells,  and  the  various  in- 
ventions of  Sax,  etc. ;  for  if  the  Germans 
do  not  understand  how  to  play  upon  the 
grand  instruments  of  Libert^^  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  they  have  a  natural  ap- 
titude for  plajang  on  every  possible 
instrument  of  music. 

The  two  old  artists,  who  were  very 
much  beloved  at  the  theater,  led  a  philo- 
sophical existence  there.  They  wore 
scales  upon  their  eyes,  in  order  that  they 
miglit  be  blind  to  all  those  ugly  blots 
that  must  disfigure  a  theatrical  troupe 
wliich  includes  a  corps  de  ballet  among 
its  members — a  frightful  combination, 
born  of  the  exigencies  of  the  treasury,  to 
be  the  plague  of  managers,  authors,  and 
musicians  alike.  The  high  respect  which 
the  worthy  and  retiring  Pons  entertained 
both  for  himself  and  for  others,,  had  won 
him  the  esteem  of  all  Avith  whom  he  came 
into  contact ;  and  indeed  it  is  true  that, 
in  every  sphere  of  society,  a  life  of  puritj' 
and  stainless  honesty  extorts  admiration, 
even  from  the  most  corrupt ;  and  that, 
at  Paris,  a  fine  example  of  virtue  meets 
with  the  same  success  as  a  big  diamond 
or  a  rare  curiosity.  Not  an  actor,  not 
an  author,  no,  not  the  most  unblushing 
of  the  ladies  of  the  ballet,  would  have 
even  dreamed  of  hoaxing  or  playing  anA- 
practical  joke  upon  Pons  or  Pons"s  friend. 
As  for  Pons,  he  would  occasionally  stroll 
into  the  greenroom  of  the  theater;  but 
Schmucke's  knowledge  of  the  building 
was  confined  to  the  underground  pas- 
sages that  led  from  the  exterior  of  the 
house  to  the  orchestra.  When  the 
worthy    old    German    was    on    duty    he 


would  sometimes  cast  a  venturesome 
glance  at  the  body  of  the  house,  and  ad- 
dress a  question  or  two  to  the  first  flute 
(a  j'oung  man  who  had  been  born  at 
Strasbourg,  the  scion  of  a  German  fami- 
\y  from  Kehl).  Schmucke's  questiou 
would  have  reference  to  those  eccentric 
personages  who  are,  almost  invariably-, 
to  be  seen  in  the  stage-boxes.  Little  by 
little  the  child-like  mind  of  Schmucke 
(whose  education  in  things  social  was 
undertaken  by  this  flutist)  was  induced 
to  admit  that  the  existence  of  the  lorette 
was  not  entirely-  a  fable,  that  there  was 
such  things  as  illicit  marriages,  that  first 
ladies  of  the  ballet  might  be  recklessly' 
extravagant,  and  that  box-keepers  did 
occasionally  carry  on  a  little  contraband 
commerce.  To  this  worth_y  old  man,  the 
very  innocencies  of  vice  seemed  to  be  the 
ne plus  ultra  of  Babylonian  depravitj"^ ; 
and  he  greeted  their  rehearsal  with  a 
smile,  such  as  he  would  have  accorded 
to  a  Chinese  arabesque.  The  intelli- 
gent reader  will  not  need  to  be  informed 
that  Pons  and  Schmucke  were  both — to 
use  a  word  that  is  very  much  in  fasli- 
ion  —  exploit es ;  but  what  they  lost  in 
monej"^  they  gained  in  esteem,  and  in 
the  good  offices  that  were  rendered  to 
them. 

After  the  success  of  a  certain  ballet, 
which  laid  the  foundation  of  the  fortune 
acquired  by  the  Gaudissard  partnership, 
the  managers  sent  Pons  a  silver  group 
that  was  said  tobethe  work  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  and  the  price  of  which  was  so 
high,  that  it  formed  the  topic  of  a  green- 
room conversation.  That  price  was  no 
less  than  twelve  hundred  francs  !  The 
poor  worthy  fellow  wanted  to  return  the 
gift :  and  Gaudissard  had  a  world  of 
trouble  in  inducing  him  to  accept  it. 
"Ah!"  exclaimed  Gaudissard  to  his 
partner,  "if  we  could  but  find  actors  of 
the  same  description  !  ■''  This  twin  exist- 
ence, that  was  outwardly  so  unrufiied, 
was,  nevertheless,  troubled,  but  it  was 
troubled  solely'  hy  the  vice  which  Pons 
hugged  so  lightly  —  his  ai'dent  passion 
for  dining  out.  Accordingly,  whenever 
Schmucke  happened  to  be  at  home  while 
Pons  was  dressing  for  dinner,  the   wor- 


48 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


thy  German  would,  inwardly,  bewail  the 
fatal  habit :  "  If  it  onl_y  made  him  vat- 
ter!'  he  would  frequently  ejaculate. 
And  he  would  ponder  over  plans  for  cur- 
ing' Pons  of  his  degrading  vice  ;  for  that 
exquisite  sense  of  smell  which  distin- 
guishes the  dog  belongs — in  things  moral 
— to  the  genuine  friend ;  he  scents  from 
afar  the  sorrows  of  his  friend,  divines 
the  hidden  source^  of  those  sorrows,  and 
broods  over  their  remedy. 

Pons,  who  still  retained,  upon  the  little 
finger  of  his  right  hand,  the  diamond  ring 
which,  though  it  is  now  become  ridicu- 
lous, fashion  permitted  the  beaus  of  the 
Empire  to  wear ;  Pons,  in  whose  compo- 
sition there  was  far  too  much  of  the 
troubadour  and  the  Frenchman  for  his 
peace  of  mind,  did  not  exhibit,  in  his  coun- 
tenance, that  divine  serenity  which  miti- 
g-ated  the  fearful  ugliness  of  Schmucke. 
Hence  the  German  had  g-athered,  from 
the  melancholy  expression  of  his  friend's 
features,  the  growing  difiBculties  that  ren- 
dered his  profession  of  parasite  more  pain- 
ful from  day  to  day.  In  fact  it  was  very 
natural  that,  in  October,  1844,  the  num- 
ber of  houses  in  which  Pons  could  count 
upon  a  dinner  should  be  extremely  limit- 
ed ;  and  the  poor  conductor,  being  now 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  confining  his 
evolutions  to  the  family  circle,  had,  as  we 
shall  see,  given  to  the  Vi^ord  family  far  too 
extensive  a  meaning. 

The  wliilom  prize-man  was  cousin-ger- 
man  to  the  first  wife  of  Monsieur  Camu- 
sot,  the  wealthy  silli-mercer  of  the  Rue 
des  Bourdonnais.  That  lady  had  been  a 
Mademoiselle  Pons  and  sole  heiress  of  one 
of  the  celebrated  Pons  Brothers,  Court 
Embroiderers — a  house  in  which  the  fa- 
ther and  mother  of  our  musician  had  had 
'an  interest.  Indeed,  they  it  was  who — 
before  the  revolution  of  1798 — had  founded 
the  business,  which  subsequent^,  in  1815, 
was  sold  to  Monsieur  Rivet  by  the  father 
of  the  first  Madame  Camusot.  Her  hus- 
band, who  had  retired  from  business  ten 
years  before  the  opening  of  this  scene,  was 
now,  in  1844,  a  member  of  the  General 
Council  of  Manufacturers,  a  deputy,  etc., 
etc.  Pons,  having  acquired  the  friendship 
of  the  Camusot  tribe,  considered  himself 


the  cousin  of  the  silk-mercer's  children  by 
his  second  wife ;  although,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  poor  musician  Avas  not  even 
connected  with  them. 

The  second  Madame  Camusot  was  a 
Mademoiselle  Cardot.  Pons,  accordingly', 
as  being  a  relative  of  the  Camusots,  in- 
troduced himself  into  the  numerous  family 
of  the  Cardots — another  tribe  of  bourgeois, 
which,  with  all  its  alliances,  formed  a  com- 
plex society,  no  less  powerful  than  that  of 
the  Camusots. 

Cardot,  the  notary,  brother  of  the  sec- 
ond Madame  Camusot,  had  married  a 
Mademoiselle  Chiffreville.  Now,  the  well- 
known  family  of  Chiffre\Tlle — the  queen 
of  the  trade  in  chemical  products — had 
business  relations  \\ith  the  wholesale 
druggists,  of  whom  Monsieur  Anselm 
Popinot,  M'ho,  as  every  one  knows,  was 
carried  by  the  Revolution  of  July  into  the 
very  innermost  circle  of  dynastic  poUtics, 
was  the  leading  spirit. 

Thus  our  friend  Pons,  following  in 
the  wake  of  the  Camusots  and  Cardots, 
planted  himself  upon  the  Chift'revilles, 
and,  through  them,  upon  the  Popinots ; 
always — be  it  understood — in  his  capacity 
of  cousin  to  the  cousins. 

This  slight  glimpse  of  the  old  man's 
social  relations — in  this  their  final  stage — 
will  exiDlaiu  how  it  came  to  pass  that,  in 
the  year  1844,  he  still  retained  a  footing 
in  the  establishments : 

Firstly,  of  Monsieur  le  Comte  Popinot, 
peer  of  France,  ex-Minister  of  Agriculture 
and  Commerce ; 

Secondly,  of  Monsieur  Cardot,  ex-nota- 
ry, mayor,  and  deputy  for  one  of  the 
arrondissements  of  Paris; 

Thirdly,  of  Monsieur  Camusot,  senior, 
deputy,  member  of  the  Council-General 
of  Manufactures,  and  on  the  high-road  to 
the  peerage ; 

Fourthly,  of  Monsieur  Camusot,  junior, 
son  of  Camusot,  senior,  by. his  first  wife, 
and  therefore  the  real,  in  fact  the  only 
real,  cousin  of  Pons — even  this  cousin  was 
a  cousin  once  removed. 

The  younger  Camusot,  who,  to  distin- 
guish himself  from  his  father  and  his  half- 
brother,  had  added  to  his  own  name  that 
of  his  estate  (De  Marville),  was,  in  1844, 


COUSIN    PONS. 


49 


President  of  one  of  the  Divisions  of  the 
Court  Eoyal  of  Paris.  The  ex-notary 
Cardot  had  married  his  daughter  to  Ber- 
thiar,  his  successor,  and  Pons,  as  a  chent 
of  the  office,  had  managed  to  retain  a  seat 
at  this  table.  He  termed  it  a  dinner  par- 
devcmt  notaire. 

Such  was  the  botirgeois  firmament 
which  Pons  styled  his  family,  and  in 
which,  by  dint  of  many  a  painful  effort, 
he  had  preserved  the  right  of  plying  knife 
and  fork.  Of  the  ten  houses  which  our 
artist  frequented,  the  house  of  President 
Camusot  owed  him  the  warmest  welcome ; 
for  that  was  the  object  of  his  most  assid- 
uous attentions.  But,  unfortunately,  the 
president's  wife,  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Monsieur  Thirion,  groom  of  the  chamber 
to  Louis  XVIII.  and  Charles  X.,  had 
never  given  a  cordial  reception  to  her 
husband's  first  cousui  once  removed.  In 
his  attempts  to  mollify  this  formidable 
relative.  Pons  had  simply  wasted  his  time ; 
for  after  giving  gratuitous  lessons  to 
Mademoiselle  Camusot,  he  found  that  he 
could  not  make  a  musician  of  the  young 
lady,  who,  by  the  way,  had  a  slight  ten- 
dencj'  to  red  hair. 

Now  it  was  to  the  house  of  his  cousin 
the  president  that  Pons,  with  his  hand 
protecting  his  precious  treasure,  was,  at 
the  moment  when  our  story  opens,  wend- 
ing his  way.  On  entering  the  house  he 
always  fancied  himself  at  the  Tuileries ; 
so  profoundly  was  he  impressed  by  the 
solemn  green  draperies,  the  carmelite- 
colored  hangings,  the  Wilton  cai'pets  and 
somber  furniture  of  this  abode ;  in  which 
everything  exhaled  an  atmosphere  of 
magisterial  severity.  Yet — strange  phe- 
nomenon ! — at  Popinot's  house  in  the  Rue 
Basse-du-Rempart  Pons  felt  quite  at  home, 
doubtlessly  on  account  of  the  objects  of 
art  to  be  found  there ;  for  the  former 
Minister  had,  since  his  introduction  to  the 
political  world,  imbibed  the  mania  for  col- 
lecting fine  Avorks  of  art — by  way  of  op- 
position, no  doubt,  to  the  art  of  politics, 
which  secretly  collects  the  very  foulest 
works  of  man. 


IV. 

ONE   OF  THE   THOUSAND  JOYS   OF  A 
COLLECTOR. 

The  President  de  Marville  lived  in  the 
Rue  de  Hanovre,  in  a  house  that  his  wife 
had  bought  ten  j-ears  ago,  after  the  de- 
mise of  both  her  parents,  who  left  her 
their  savings,  amounting  to  about  one 
hundred  and  fift\'  thousand  francs. 

This  house,  whose  street-front,  in  con- 
sequence of  its  northern  aspect,  is  some- 
what gloomj',  has,  at  the  back,  a  south- 
ern aspect  that  looks  upon  a  court,  be- 
yond which  lies  a  good  garden.  The 
president  occupied  the  whole  of  the  first 
floor,  which,  in  the  reign  of  Louis  Quinze, 
had  formed  the  habitation  of  one  of  the 
wealthiest  financiers  of  the  period.  The 
second  floor  was  let  to  a  rich  old  lady ; 
and  thus  this  abode  presents  the  dignified 
and  tranquil  appearance  that  becomes 
the  dwelling  of  a  judge. 

The  remnants  of  the  magnificent  estate 
of  Marville,  to  the  acquisition  of  which 
the  president  had  devoted  the  savings  of 
twenty  years,  as  well  as  the  fortune  which 
he  had  inherited  from  his  mother,  con- 
sisted of  the  chateau  itself — one  of  those 
splendid  monuments  which  are  still  to  be 
met  with  in  Normandy — and  a  substan- 
tial farm  let  at  a  rental  of  twelve  thou- 
sand francs.  The  chateau  st;inds  in  a 
park  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres.  This  luxury,  which,  in  these 
times,  ma  J'  be  called  princely,  costs  the 
president  three  thousand  francs  per  an- 
num ;  so  that  the  estate  yields  a  net  in- 
come of  nine  thousand  francs  only.  These 
nine  thousand  francs,  together  with  the 
president's  salary,  brought  his  income  up 
to  a  total  of  twenty  thousand  francs — a 
sum  which  would  seem  to  be  adequate, 
especially  when  it  is  considered  that,  as 
the  only  issue  of  his  father's  first  mar- 
riage, Monsieur  de  Marville  would  come 
in  for  one  half  of  his  father's  fortune. 

But  residence  in  Paris,  and  the  expenses 
entailed  on  the  president  and  his  wife  by 
their  social  position,  swallowed  up  almost 
the  whole  of  their  income.  Indeed,  up  to 
the  year  1843,  they  had  been  hard  pushed 
to  make  both  ends  meet. 


50 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Tins  inventory  will  show  the  reader 
vfhy  Mademoiselle  de  Marville,  a  young- 
lad^'  of  twenty -three  summers,  notwith- 
standing- her  portion,  which  amounted  to 
100,000  francs,  and  her  expectations,  so 
frequently  and  skillfully  (though  fruit- 
lessly) held  fortli  hy  way  of  bait,  still 
remained  unmarried. 

For  the  last  five  years  Cousin  Pons 
had  listened  to  the  lamentations  of  Mad- 
ame la  Presidente,  who  was  doomed  to 
behold  all  the  deputy  judges  married, 
and  the  new  judges  of  the  tribunal  made 
happy  fathers,  while  she  had  been  spend- 
ing- her  time  and  energies  in  a  fruitless 
attempt  to  dazzle  with  Mademoiselle  de 
Marville's  expectations  the  unenchanted 
gaze  of  young  Viscount  Popinot,  the  eld- 
est son  of  the  prince  of  the  drug  trade, 
for  whose  benefit — at  least  so  said  the 
envious  ones  of  the  Rue  des  Lombards — 
quite  as  much  as  for  the  benefit  of  the 
younger  branches  of  the  royal  family, 
the  Revolution  of  July  had  been  brought 
about. 

When  Pons  had  reached  the  Rue  Choi- 
seul,  and  was  just  on  the  point  of  turning 
into  the  Rue  de  Hanovre,  there  stole  over 
him  that  inexplicable  sensation  which 
oft^n  besets  the  pure  in  heart,  and  inflicts 
on  them  tortures  as  keen  as  any  that  the 
greatest  criminal  can  experience  at  sight 
of  a  gendarme.  The  question — "  How 
will  the  president's  wife  receive  me  ?  " — 
was  the  sole  source  of  Pons's  sufferings. 
That  fragment  of  gravel  which  lacerated 
the  fibers  of  his  heart  had  never  worn  it- 
self round  ;  on  the  contrary',  its  ang-les 
had  grown  sharper  ;  and  the  servants  of 
this  mansion  had  incessantly  whetted  the 
edges  of  the  stonelet.  In  fact,  the  slight 
esteem  which  the  Camusots  entertained 
for  Pons,  his  demonetization— so  to  speak 
— among-  the  members  of  this  family,  in- 
fluenced its  servants,  who,  without  being 
positively  rude  to  Pons,  regarded  him  as 
a  variet}'^  of  the  species  pauper. 

His  principal  foe  was  a  certain  Made- 
leine Vivet,  a  thin  and  shriveled  spinster, 
who  acted  as  lady's-maid  to  Madame  de 
Marville  and  her  daughter.  This  Made- 
leine, spite  of  her  blotchy  complexion — 
perhaps,  indeed,  in  consequence  of  that 


complexion  and  her  viperme  length  of 
body — had  taken  it  into  her  head  to  be- 
come Madame  Pons.  But  in  vain  did 
Madeleine  parade,  before  the  ej-es  of  the 
old  bachelor,  the  twenty  thousand  francs 
which  she  had  contrived  to  scrape  to- 
gether. Pons  refused  a  happiness  that 
was  so  deeply  tinged  with — red.  So  this 
Dido  of  the  antechamber,  who  wanted  to 
become  the  cousin  of  her  master  and  mis- 
tress, played  the  poor  musician  manj'  a 
scurvy  trick.  When  she  heard  the  worthy 
man  upon  the  staircase — "  Here  comes 
the  sponger  !  "  she  would  exclaim  ;  taking 
care  that,  if  possible,  he  should  overhear 
her.  If  (in  the  absence  of  the  footman) 
she  waited  at  table,  she  took  care  to  give 
her  victim  plenty  of  water  and  very  little 
wine  ;  and  she  filled  his  glass  so  full  that 
it  was  a  hard  matter  for  him  to  convey 
it  to  his  lips  without  spilling  some  of  its 
contents.  Then  she  would  forget  to  serve 
him,  until  the  president's  wife — in  a  voice 
that  made  her  husband  blush — would 
order  her  to  do  so ;  or  else  she  would 
upset  the  sauce  over  his  clothes.  In 
short,  it  was  a  case  of  war  carried  on  by 
an  inferior,  certain  of  impunity,  against 
an  unfortunate  superior. 

In  the  double  capacity  of  housekeeper 
and  lady's-maid,  Madeleine  had  followed 
the  fortunes  of  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Camusot  since  their  marriage.  She  had 
seen  them  in  all  the  penury  of  their  first 
start  in  life,  at  the  time  when  the^'  lived 
in  the  provinces,  and  Monsieur  Camusot 
was  a  judge  of  the  tribunal  of  Alengon. 
She  had  lightened  the  burden  of  existence 
for  them,  when,  in  1828,  Monsieur  Camu- 
sot threw  up  the  presidency  of  the  tri- 
bunal of  Mantes,  and  came  to  Paris, 
where  he  was  appointed  ajvge  dHnstruc- 
tion.  Madeleine,  therefore,  was  far  too 
intimately  connected  with  the  family  to 
lack  grounds  for  wreaking  vengeance  on 
it.  Beneath  her  (^esire  to  play  her 
haughty  and  amliitious  mistress  the 
trick  of  becoming  her  husband's  cousin, 
there  lurked,  beyond  a  doubt,  one  of 
those  covert  hatreds  which  are  bom  of 
a  trifle,  small  as  the  pebble  that  sets  the 
avalanche  in  motion. 

"  Here  is  your  cousin  Pons,  madame, 


cousiy  PONS. 


51 


and  still  in  that  spencer  of  his.  He  really 
ought  to  tell  me  how  he  has  managed  to 
preserve  it  during-  these  five-and-twent^- 
years."  Such  was  Madeleine's  intima- 
tion to  her  mistress. 

Hearing  a  man's  footstep  in  the  little 
room  that  lay  between  her  drawiug-room 
and  bedchamber,  Madame  Camusot  looked 
at  her  daughter  and  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders. 

"  You  alwaj-s  contrive  to  give  me  warn- 
ing so  cleverly,  Madeleine,  as  to  leave  me 
no  time  to  determine  how  to  act,"  said 
Madame  Camusot. 

'•  John  is  out,  madame ;  I  was  alone ; 
and  when  Monsieur  Pons  I'ang  the  bell  I 
opened  the  door  to  him.  As  he  is  almost 
one  of  the  family,  I  could  not  prevent  his 
following  me.  He  is  outside  now,  taking 
off  his  spencer." 

"Mj-  poor  Minette,"  quoth  the  lady  to 
her  daughter,  "we  are  fairly  caught;  now 
we  shall  have  to  dine  at  home."  Then 
seeing  how  utterly  woe-begone  her  dear 
Minette  appeared,  she  resumed  : 

"Come,  shall  we  rid  ourselves  of  him 
for  good  ?  " 

"Oh!  poor  man!"  repUed  Mademoi- 
selle Camusot,  "  would  you  deprive  him 
of  one  of  his  dinners?" 

Hereupon  the  little  anteroom  resounded 
with  the  affected  cough  of  a  man  who 
adopts  this  method  of  saying,  "  I  can 
overhear  you." 

"  Well,  show  him  in,"  said  Madame 
Camusot,  shrugging  her  shoulders. 
"You  have  called  so  early,  cousin," 
said  Cecile  Camusot,  assuming  a  slight- 
ly coaxing  air  —  "  you  have  called  so 
early  that  you  have  come  upon  us  just 
as  mamma  was  going  to  dress." 

Cousin  Pons,  on  whom  the  movement 
of  the  siioulders  had  not  been  thrown 
away,  was  so  deeply  wounded  that  he 
could  find  no  compliment  to  utter,  and 
took  i-efuge  in  the  profound  remark : 
"  You  are  as  charming  as  ever,  little 
cousin."  Then  turning  to  the  matron 
and  bowing,  he  continued  :  "  You  will 
bear  me  no  grudge,  dear  cousin,  for 
coming  a  little  earlier  than  usual,  for 
I  have  brought  you  what  you  did  me 
the  pleasure  to  ask  me  for." 


forgotten    aU 


said     Madame     Camusot, 


And  poor  Pons,  who  excruciated  the 
president,  the  president's  wife,  and  Ce- 
cile, every  time  that  he  called  them 
"cousin,"  drew  from  the  side-pocket  of 
his  coat  an  exquisite  little  oblong  box  of 
Saint-Lucia  wood  divmely  carved. 

"  Oh  !     I    had    entirely' 
about     it ! 
dryly. 

Now,  was  not  this  an  atrocious  thing  to 
say  ?  Was  not  this  a  stealing  of  aU  merit 
from  the  pains  taken  by  her  relation, 
whose  only  fault  was  that  he  was  a 
poor  relation  ? 

"But,"  pursued  she,  "you  are  ex- 
tremely kind,  cousin.  Am  I  much  in 
your  debt  for  this  Uttle  bit  of  trump- 
ery ? " 

This  question  made  Pons  wince  inter- 
nallj';  he  had  looked  upon  this  httle 
trinket  as  an  oblation  that  would  pay 
for  all  his  dinners. 

"  I  thought  that  you  would  allow  me  to 
offer  it  to  you  as  a  present,"  said  he,  with 
emotion. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  What  do  you 
mean?"  exclaimed  the  ladj-.'  "Come 
now,  don't  let  there  be  any  ceremony 
between  us;  we  know  each  other  quite 
well  enough  to  speak  frankly  to  one  an- 
other :  I  know  that  you  are  not  rich 
enough  to  provide  the  sinews  of  war ;  is 
it  not  sufficient  that  you  should  have  in- 
curred trouble  and  loss  of  time  in  going 
about  from  shop  to  shop  ?  " 

"My  dear  cousin,  I  don't  think  that 
you  would  care  to  have  this  fan,  if  you 
were  called  upon  to  give  for  it  what  it  is 
worth,"  replied  the  poor  man  in  his  wrath, 
"  for  it  is  one  of  Watteau's  masterpieces ; 
both  of  its  sides  were  painted  by  him.  But 
make  ^our  mind  easy,  cousin  ;  the  fan  did 
not  cost  me  the  hundredth  part  of  its  value 
as  a  work  of  art." 

To  say  to  a  rich  person :  "  You  are 
poor,"  is  like  telling  the  archbishop  of 
Granada  that  his  sermons  are  rubbish. 
Madame  de  Marville  was  far  too  proud  of 
her  husband's  position,  of  being  the  owner 
of  the  estate  of  Marville,  and  of  her  invi- 
tations to  the  court  balls,  not  to  be  cut  to 
the  very  quick  b^'  such  an  observation, 
especially  when  it  emanated  from  a  mis- 


52 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


erable  musician,  in  regard  to  whom  she 
assumed  the  part  of  Ladj'  Bountiful. 

"Then  the  people  of  whom  you  buy 
these  tiling's  must  be  very  stupid,"  said 
the  lady,  with  marked  emphasis. 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  in  all  Paris  as 
a  stupid  shopkeeper,"  replied  Pons,  al- 
most dryly. 

"It  is  you  who  arc  so  clever,  then," 
said  Cccile,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the 
discussion. 

"  I  am  clever  enough,  little  cousin,  to 
know  the  liandiwork  of  Lancret,  Pater, 
Watteau,  and  Greuze  ;  but,  moreover,  I 
was  stimulated  by  a  desire  to  please  j-our 
dear  mamma." 

Vain  and  ignorant,  Madame  Camusot 
did  not  wish  to  have  the  appearance  of 
receiving  even  a  trifle  from  the  hands 
of  her  parasite ;  and  her  ignorance  stood 
her  in  good  stead  ;  the  very  name  of 
Watteau  was  unknown  to  her. 

If  anything  can  prove  the  enormous 
self-esteem  of  the  collector  (which  as- 
suredly takes  rank  with  any,  for  it  rivals 
the  self-esteem  of  the  author),  'tis  the 
hardihood  displayed  by  Pons  in  thus  hold- 
ing his  own  against  his  cousin  for  the 
first  time  in  the  course  of  twenty  years. 
Amazed  at  his  own  audacity,  Pons  re- 
sumed a  pacific  mien,  while  he  pointed 
out  to  Cecile,  in  detail,  the  beauties  of 
the  delicate  carving  of  the  branches  of 
the  marvelous  fan.  But  to  explain  the 
heartfelt  trepidation  which  seized  upon 
the  worthy  man,  we  must  give  a  slight 
sketch  of  Madame  la  Presidente. 

At  the  age  of  forty-six,  Madame  de 
Marville,  who  had  once  been  fair,  plump 
and  fresh — short  she  always  was — had 
become  skinny.  Her  bulging  forehead 
and  retreating  mouth,  ha\'ing  lost  the 
delicate  redeeming  tints  of  youth,  now 
gave  to  her  face,  that  had  always  worn  a 
disdainful  look,  an  air  of  sullenness.  Ha- 
bitual and  unresisted  despotism  in  her 
own  house  had  rendered  her  features  hard 
and  disagreeable  ;  while  Time  had  changed 
her  once  fair  hair  to  a  harsh  chestnut  color. 
Her  eyes,  still  keen  and  caustic,  had  a  look 
of  magisterial  arrogance,  big  with  sup- 
pressed envy.  In  fact,  the  wife  of  the 
president  found  that,  amid  the  circle  of 


successful  bourgeois  with  whom  Pons 
dined,  she  was  almost  poor.  She  could 
not  forgive  the  wealthy  wholesale  drug- 
gist (the  former  President  of  the  Tri- 
bunal of  Commerce)  for  having  succes- 
sively attained  the  rank  of  deputy,  of 
minister,  of  count  and  peer.  She  could 
not  forgive  her  father-in-law  for  having, 
to  the  detriment  of  his  eldest  son,  pro- 
cured his  own  nomination  as  deputy  of 
his  o^\^l  arrondissement  at  the  time  when 
Popinot  was  raised  to  the  peerage.  She 
had  been  in  Paris  eighteen  years,  and  was 
still  waiting  for  her  husband  to  be  ap- 
pointed Counselor  of  the  Court  of  Cassa- 
tion, a  post  from  which  he  was  shut  out 
on  account  of  his  limited  capacity,  which 
was  notorious  at  the  palace.  The  gen- 
tleman who  in  1844  occupied  the  post  of 
Minister  of  Justice  regretted  that  Ca- 
musot had  been  made  a  president  in  1834 ; 
but,  to  mitigate  the  evil,  he  had  been  rele- 
gated to  the  criminal  department,  where, 
thanks  to  his  technical  training  as  a 
juge  cV instruction,  he  did  good  work 
by  making  short  work  of  the  accused. 
These  various  crosses  had  so  worn  and 
worried  Madame  de  Marville  (who,  by  the 
way,  labored  under  no  delusion  with  re- 
gard to  her  husband's  capacity)  that  they 
ha€l  ended  hy  making  her  quite  terrible. 
Her  disposition,  which  was  originally 
overbearing,  was  now  soured.  Aged 
rather  than  old,  she  assumed  all  the 
harshness  and  dryness  of  a  brusk,  with 
a  view  to  extorting,  through  the  fear 
which  she  inspired,  all  that  the  world 
was  Inclined  to  withhold.  Sarcastic  to 
excess,  she  had  few  friends;  but  she  pos- 
sessed a  good  deal  of  influence ;  for  she 
had  gathered  round  her  a  circle  of  old 
female  pietists,  of  her  own  stamp,  who, 
with  an  ej'-e  to  reciprocity,  lent  her  their 
support.  Thus  the  relations  of  poor  Pons 
toward  this  devil  in  petticoats  were  ex- 
actly like  those  which  exist  between  a 
pupil  and  a  master  who  speaks  only 
through  the  rod  ;  so  that  the  lady  was 
entirely  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  sud- 
den boldness  of  her  cousin ;  she  was 
completely  ignorant  of  the  value  of  the 
fan. 

"  And  pray  where  did  you  find  this  ?  " 


COUSIN    PONS. 


53 


inquired  Cecile,  as  she  examined  the 
treasure. 

"In  the  Rue  de  Lappe,  in  theshop  of  a 
broker  who  had  just  brought  it  from  a 
chateau  near  Dreux,  that  has  just  been 
pulled  down.  The  name  of  the  chateau  is 
Aulnay  ;  Madame  de  Pompadour  occasion- 
ally stayed  there,  before  she  built  Menars. 
They  have  preserved  some  of  the  most 
splendid  woodwork  that  was  ever  known  ; 
it  is  so  beautiful  that  Lienard,  our  cele- 
brated wood-carver,  has  retained  two  oval 
frames  for  models,  as  being'  the  ne  plus 
ultra  of  the  art.  Ah  !  there  were  treas- 
ures there,  indeed  !  My  broker  found  his 
fan  in  an  inlaid  bonheur-du-jour ,  which  I 
should  have  bought  if  I  collected  such 
things  :  but  that  is  far  bej'ond  my  reach! 
Why.  a  piece  of  furniture  by  Reisener  is 
worth  three  or  four  thousand  francs  !  In 
Paris  people  are  beginning  to  understand 
that  the  famous  inlayers  (French  and 
German)  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth, 
•and  eighteenth  centuries,  produced  veri- 
table pictures  in  wood.  The  merit  of  a 
collector  consists  in  getting  the  start  of 
fashion.  Mark  what  I  say  :  five  years 
hence  the  Frankenthal  porcelain,  which  I 
have  been  collecting  for  the  last  twenty 
years,  will  be  twice  as  dear  as  the  soft 
porcelain  of  Sevres." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  Frankenthal  ?" 
asked  Cecile. 

"It  is  the  name  of  the  china  manufac- 
tory of  the  Elector  Palatine;  'tis  older 
than  our  Sevres  works  ;  just  as  the  fam- 
ous gardens  of  Heidelberg,  which  Turenne 
destroyed,  had  the  misfortune  to  exist 
Ijefore  the  gardens  of  Versailles  were  laid 
out.  Sevres  has  imitated  Frankenthal  to 
a  considerable  extent.  We  must,  in  jus- 
tice, admit  that  the  Germans  produced,  in 
Saxony  and  the  Palatinate,  some  admir- 
able works,  before  we  did." 

Mother  and  daughter  looked  at  each 
other,  as  if  Pons  had  been  talking  Chi- 
nese :  for  the  ignorance  and  narrow- 
ness of  the  Parisians  are  beyond  con- 
ception. They  learn  what  we  try  to 
teach  them  onlj'  when  they  want  to  be 
taught. 

"And  how  do  you  recognize  Franken- 
thal porcelain  ?  " 


"  Why  the  signature!'^  exclaimed  Pons, 
with  animation.  "'  All  these  exquisite 
masterpieces  are  signed.  Frankenthal 
china  has  a  C  and  a  T  (Charles-Theo- 
dore) intertwined,  and  surmounted  by  a 
prince's  coronet ;  old  Dresden  has  the 
two  swords  and  the  ordinal  number  in 
gold ;  Vincennes  used  to  sign  with  a 
horn ;  Vienna  has  a  V  fermed  and 
barred ;  Berlin  has  the  double  bar ; 
Mayence  the  wheel ;  Sevres  the  double 
LL ;  while  the  queen's  porcelain  has  an 
A  (which  stands  for  Antoinette)  sur- 
mounted by  the  royal  crown.  In  the 
eighteenth  centur\',  aU  the  sovereigns 
of  Europe  competed  with  one  another  in 
the  manufacture  of  porcelain  ;  they  stole 
each  other's  workmen.  Watteau  de- 
signed services  for  the  Dresden  works, 
and  his  productions  now  command  exor- 
bitant prices  (one  needs  to  know  them 
well ;  for  nowadays  Dresden  is  reproduc- 
ing and  imitating  them).  In  those  daj^s 
some  admirable  things  were  produced, 
things  the  like  of  which  will  never  see 
the  light  again." 

"  What  nonsense  !  " 

"'  l!iay,  cousin  ;  'tis  as  I  say.  There  are 
certain  kinds  of  marquetry  and  porcelain 
that  will  never  again  be  produced,  any 
more  than  the  pictures  of  Raphael,  Titian, 
Rembrandt,  Van  E,yck,  and  Cranach  will 
be  reproduced.  Why  !  the  Chinese  are 
extremely  skillful,  extremelj-  clever — are 
they  not  ?  Well,  ihey  are  now  producing 
copies  of  their  choicest  china,  that  which 
is  known  as  Grand-Mandarin ;  well !  two 
vases  of  Grand-Mandarin,  of  the  largest 
size,  are  worth  six  thousand,  eight  thou- 
sand, nay,  even  ten  thousand  francs  !  and 
3'^ou  can  get  a  modern  copy  for  two  hun- 
dred fi'ancs  !  " 

"  You  must  be  joking  ! " 

"  Cousin,  these  prices  astonish  you  : 
but  they  are  a  mere  nothing.  Not  only 
does  a  complete  dinner  service  for  twelve;, 
made  of  soft  Sevres  ware  (which  is  not 
porcelain),  fetch  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  ;  but  that  is  the  invoic(>  price.  Such 
a  service  cost  fifty  thousand  livres  at 
Se\Tes  in  1750.  I  have  seen  the  original 
invoices." 

"Let  us  come  back  to  this  fan,"  said 


54 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Cecile,  in  whose  eyes  the  trinket  had  the 
fault  of  looking  too  old. 

'•You  see/' said  Pons,  "I  began  my 
hunt  directly  your  dear  mamma  did  me 
the  honor  to  ask  me  for  a  fan.  I  exam- 
ined all  the  dealers'  shops  in  Paris,  with- 
out finding-  anything  that  was  reallj'  fine  ; 
for  I  Avanted  to  give  Madame  la  Presi- 
dente  a  chef-d'ceuvre,  and  I  did  think  of 
offering  her  the  fan  of  Marie  Antoinette 
— the  most  beautiful  of  all  celebrated 
fans ;  but  yesterdaj"^  I  was  dazzled  hy 
this  divine  masterpiece,  which  must  cer- 
tainly have  been  bespoken  by  Louis 
Quinze  himself.  Now,  why  did  I  go  to 
the  Rue  de  Lappe,  to  search  for  a  fan  in 
the  shop  of  an  AuTergnat,  who  deals  in 
copper,  old  iron,  and  gilt  furniture  ?  Well, 
for  my  own  part,  I  believe  that  works  of 
art  have  minds  ;  that  thej^  know  an  ama- 
teur when  they  see  him,  that  they  beckon 
to  him,  that  they  call  out  to  him  :  '  Hist ! 
hist !  "'  Here  Madame  Camusot  indulged 
in  another  shrug  of  the  shouldei's,  and 
looked  at  her  daughter;  but  this  rapid 
pantomime  escaped  Pons's  notice. 

"I  know  them  all,  these  rascals  !  'What 
novelty  have  you,  Daddy  Monisti'ol  ?  Have 
you  any  door-lops  ?  '  I  said  to  this  dealer, 
who  allows  me  just  to  cast  an  eye  over 
his  purchases,  before  the  wholesale  buy- 
ers come.  In  answer  to  my  inquiiy,  Mon- 
istrol  told  me  how  Lienard,  who  was 
doing  some  very  fine  carving  for  ro3'alty, 
in  the  chapel  of  Dreux,  had,  at  the  sale  of 
Aulnay,  rescued  the  carved  wood-work 
from  the  Paris  dealers,  who  were  on  the 
lookout  for  porcelain  and  inlaid  furniture. 
'  I  didn't  pick  up  much,'  replied  Monistrol, 
'but  that,'  said  he,  pointing  to  the  hon- 
heur-du-jour,  'will  pay  the  expenses  of 
my  journey.'  'Tis  a  perfect  marvel,  with 
designs  by  Boucher,  executed  in  marque- 
try most  artistically  ;  one  feels  inclined  to 
go  down  on  one's  knees  befoi-e  it.  '  Look 
here,  sir,'  says  Monistrol,  '  I  have  just 
come  across  this  fan  in  a  little  diawer, 
which  was .  locked,  and  had  no  kej%  so 
that  I  had  to  force  it  open.  You  might 
perhaps  tell  me  where  I  can  sell  it.'  And 
•io  saying,  forth  he  pulls  this  little  box 
of  cai'ved  Saint-Lucia  wood.  '  Look  ! ' 
says  he,  'it's  in  that  Pompadour  style 


that  looks  like  flowered  Gothic'  'Yes,' 
said  I,  '  the  box  is  pretty  ;  the  box  might) 
suit  me ;  for  as  to  the  fan,  my  worthy 
Monistrol,  I  have  no  Madame  Pons  to 
give  the  old  trinket  to  ;  besides,  one  can 
buy  new  ones  that  are  verj'  pretty ;  they 
paint  these  vellums,  nowadays,  marvel- 
oush%  and  very  cheap.  Are  jo\x  aware 
that  there  are  two  thousand  painters  in 
Paris  ?  '  And  so  saying  I  carelesslj'  opened 
the  fan,  suppressing  my  admiration,  and 
looking  with  a  cold  eye  at  these  little 
pictures,  the  freedom  and  finish  of  which 
are  exquisite  :  I  held  in  my  hand  the  fan 
of  Madame  Pompadour  ! — a  work  that 
had  taxed  the  energies  of  Wattcau  to  the 
very  utmost !  '  How  much  do  you  want 
for  the  piece  of  furniture  ?  '  I  inquired. 
'  Oh  !  a  thousand  francs  ;  I  have  been  of- 
fered that  for  it  already.'  I  then  named, 
as  the  price  of  the  fan,  a  sum  proportioned 
to  the  probable  expenses  of  his  journey. 
Thereupon  we  looked  each  other  full  in 
the  face,  and  I  saw  that  my  man  was 
caught.  Quick  as  thought  I  clap  the 
fan  into  the  box,  to  prevent  the  Auver- 
gnat  from  examining  it,  and  I  go  into 
ecstasies  over  the  workmanship  of  the 
box,  which  is  certainly  a  perfect  gem. 
'  If  I  buy  the  fan,  'tis  onlj'  for  the  sake 
of  the  box  ;  it  is  only  tlie  box  that  tempts 
me,  look  you.  As  for  the  honheur-du- 
jour,  you  will  get  more  than  a  thousand 
francs  for  that ;  look  at  the  chiseling  of 
this  copper;  what  models!  You  may 
make  a  good  tiling  out  of  that  ;  it  has 
never  been  copied  ;  everything  that  was 
made  for  Madame  de  Pompadour  was 
unique.'  And  my  man,  warming  up  over 
his  bonlieur-du-jour,  forgets  all  about 
the  fan,  and  allows  me  to  have  it  for 
nothing,  in  exchange  for  my  revelation 
of  the  beauties  of  the  piece  of  furniture 
by  Reisener.  So  there  you  are  !  But  it 
requires  a  lot  of  practice  to  be  able  to 
drive  such  bargains.  It  is  a  struggle  of 
eye  against  eye ;  and  what  an  eye  is  the 
eye  of  a  Jew  or  an  Auvergnat !  " 

The  wonderful  acting,  the  animation  of 
the  old  man,  as  he  narrated  the  triumph 
of  his  subtiltj'  over  the  ignorance  of  the 
broker,  formed  a  subject  fit  for  the  brush 
of  a  Dutch  artist.     But  it  was  all  thrown 


COUSIN    PONS. 


55 


away  upon  Madame  Camusot  and  her 
daug-hter,  who,  while  they  exchanged 
glances  that  betokened  indifference  and 
disdain,  mentalh''  exclaimed  :  "  What  an 
original  !  " 

"And  that  sort  of  thing  amuses  you  ?" 
asked  the  president's  wife. 

This  question  froze  poor  Pons ;  he  felt 
inclined  to  strike  the  woman. 

"Whjr,  niy  dear  cousin,"  replied  he, 
"  it  is  a  masterpiece-hunt— a  hunt  in  the 
course  of  which  you  find  yourself  con- 
fronted by  adversaries  who  defend  the 
game  !  "Tis  a  case  of  ruse  against  ruse  ! 
A  masterpiece  defended  b}'  a  Norman,  an 
Auvergnat,  or  a  Jew  ! — why  'tis  like  the 
fairj'  tales  in  which  you  find  a  princess 
guarded  by  enchanters  !  " 

'•'  And  how  do  you  know  that  this  fan  is 
by  Watt— what  d'ye  call  him  ?  " 

"Watteau,  dear  cousin  ;  one  of  the 
greatest  of  French  painters  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  !  Look  here — don't  j-ou 
perceive  the  signature  ?  "  said  Pons, 
pointing  to  one  of  the  principal  scenes, 
representing  a  round,  danced  by  great 
ladies  disguised  as  peasant  girls,  and  by 
grand  gentlemen  in  the  gai^b  of  shep- 
lierds.  "  How  seductive  !  What  warmth  ! 
What  coloring  !  And  'tis  all  executed  at 
a  single  stroke,  like  a  writing-master's 
flourish.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  effort  in 
it  !  And  see,  on  the  other  side,  you  have 
a  ball  in  a  drawing-room  !  What  decora- 
tions !  And  then  how  well  it  is  preserved  ! 
You  see  the  ferule  is  of  gold,  and  is  fin- 
ished off  on  either  side  with  a  little  ruby, 
which  I  have  polished  !  " 

"  That  being  so,  cousin,  I  cannot  ac- 
cept from  you  so  valuable  a  present. 
You  had  better  sell  the  fan,  and  invest 
the  proceeds,"  said  Madame  Camusot, 
though  she  was  longing  to  keej)  tlie 
magnificent  fan. 

"It  is  high  time,"  said  the  worthy 
man,  recovering  all  his  self-possession, 
"  that  that  which  has  been  in  the  service 
of  Vice  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
Virtue.  It  will  have  taken  a  century  to 
work  that  miracle.  You  may  rely  on 
this,  that  no  princess  at  court  will  have 
anything  that  can  compare  with  this 
masterpiece ;     for,    unfortunately,    it    is 


characteristic  of  human  nature  to  do 
more  for  a  Pompadour  than  for  a  virtu- 
ous queen." 

"Very  well;  I  accept  the  fan,"  said 
Madame  Camusot,  smiling.  "  Cecile,  my 
little  angel,  go  and  help  Madeleine  to  see 
that  the  dinner  is  worthy  of  our  cousin." 

The  president's  wife  wished  to  square 
accounts  with  Pons ;  and  this  direction, 
which,  in  violation  of  all  the  dictates  of 
good  taste,  was  uttered  aloud,  looked  so 
like  the  discharging  of  a  debt  that  poor 
Pons  blushed  like  a  young  girl  caught 
tripiDing.  It  was  some  time  ere  this  peb- 
ble, of  abnormal  size,  ceased  "to  rattle  in 
the  old  man's  heart. 

Cecile,  meanwhile,  a  j'oung  lady  with  a 
decided  tendency  to  red  hair,  and  whose 
somewhat  formal  manner  recalled  her 
father's  judicial  gravity,  and  had  a  touch 
of  her  mother's  dryness,  now  disappeared, 
leaving  poor  Pons  alone,  to  tackle  the 
terrible  Madame  Camusot. 


ONE  OF  THE  THOUSAND  AFFRONTS  A  PARA- 
SITE HAS  TO  ENDURE. 

"My  little  Lili  is  very  pleasing,"  said 
Madame  Camusot,  still  using  the  childish 
abbreviation  that  had  formei'ly  been  ap- 
plied to  CecUe's  name. 

"Charming,"  replied  the  musician, 
twiddling  his  thumbs. 

"  I  can't  understand  the  times  we  live 
in  at  all,"  pursued  the  lady.  "What 
is  the  use  of  having  a  president  of  the 
Court  Roj'al  of  Paris,  a  commander  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor,  for  your  father, 
and,  for  your  grandfather  a  millionaire 
deputy,  who  is  sure  some  day  to  be  a 
peer  of  France,  and  is  at  the  head  of  the 
wholesale  sillc  trade,  I  should  very  much 
like  to  know  ?  " 

The  zeal  of  thet president  on  behalf  of 
the  new  dynasty  had  recently  procured 
him  a  contmander's  ribbon — a  favor  which 
certain  envious  persons  ascribed  to  the 
friendship  that  existed  between  him  and 
Popinot. 


5G 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


That  Minister,  notwithstanding  his 
modesty,  had,  as  we  have  seen,  allowed 
himself  to  be  made  a  count — "  For  nw 
son's  sake" — said  he  to  his  numerous 
friends. 

"In  these  days,"  replied  Pons,  "the 
one  thing'  needful  is — money.  'Tis  ouh' 
the  rich  who  are  respected  and — " 

"  How  would  it  have  been  then  if 
Heaven  had  spared  my  poor  little 
Charles?" 

'•  Oh  !  with  two  children,  you  would  be 
poor  !  "  I'oplied  the  cousin.  "That  is  the 
result  of  ihe  equal  division  of  property ; 
but  make  your  mind  easy ;  Cecilc  will 
make  a  good  match  after  all.  I  know  of 
no  young  lady  so  highly  accomplished." 

You  see  to  what  a  degree  Pons  had 
learned  to  degrade  his  intellect,  when  he 
was  beneath  the  roof  of  his  Amphitryons. 
When  there  he  echoed  their  ideas,  wuth 
vapid  comments  of  his  owia,  like  the 
chorus  in  a  Greek  play.  He  did  not 
dare  to  give  rein  to  that  originality 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  artist,  and 
which  had,  in  his  youth,  flowed  freely 
from  his  lips,  in  subtle  strokes  of  wit, 
though  it  was  now  well-nigh  extin- 
guished, thx'ough  his  habitual  self-efface- 
ment, and  was  checked,  whenever  it 
appeared,  as  in  the  scene  which  we  have 
just  described. 

"  But  though  my  dowry  was  only 
twenty  thousand  francs  /  found  a  hus- 
band—" 

"111  the  year  1819,  cousin,"  interrupted 
Pons,  "and  then  it  was  you,  a  woman  of 
intellect,  a  young  lady  patronized  by 
Louis  XVIII.  !  " 

"  But  still  mj'  daughter  is  a  perfect 
angel,  and  a  girl  of  talent ;  she  is  full  of 
heart,  and  she  has  a  marriage  portion 
of  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  to  say 
nothing  of  her  large  expectations ;  yet 
she  remains  upon  our  hands — " 

Madame  de  Marville  went  on  talking 
about  her  daughter  and  herself  for  twenty 
minutes;  abandoning  hgrself  to  the  lamen- 
tations peculiar  to  mothers  who  are 
"under  the  dominion"  of  daug-hters  in 
want  of  a  husband.  Throughout  the 
period  of  twenty  years,  during  which  the 
old  musician  had  been  in  the  habit  of  din- 


ing from  time  to  time  at  the  house  of  Ca- 
musot,  his  only  cousin,  he  had  waited — 
and  waited  in  vain — to  hear  a  single  &y\- 
lable  about  his  own  affairs,  his  mode  of 
life,  his  health.  Nor  was  this  all.  Where- 
ever  he  went  he  was  used  as  a  kind  of 
conduit-pipe  for  domestic  confidences  ;  his 
reticence  being  guaranteed  b}'  his  well- 
known  discretion — an  enforced  disci'etion, 
for  a  single  bold  word  would  have  closed 
the  doors  of  ten  houses  against  him  for- 
ever. His  part  of  listener,  therefore,  was 
backed  up  by  unwavering  acquiescence ; 
he  greeted  every  statement  with  a  smile ; 
he  never  attacked,  he  never  defended,  any 
one.  AVith  him,  evei'y  one  was  in  the 
right.  Accordingly  he  had  ceased  to  be 
reckoned  as  a  man ;  he  was — a  stomach  ! 

In  the  course  of  her  long  tirade  the 
wife  of  the  president  acknowledged  to 
her  cousin,  with  due  precaution,  that  she 
was  inclined  to  accept,  almost  without 
inquiry',  any  suitor  who  might  seek  her 
daughter's  hand.  She  even  went  so  far 
as  to  treat  a  man  of  forty-eight  as  an 
eligible  husband,  provided  only  that  he 
had  an  income  of  twenty  thousand  francs. 

"Cecile,"  she  said,  "is  in  her  twenty- 
third  year,  and  should  she  be  so  unlucky 
as  to  remain  single  until  she  is  twenty- 
five  or  twentj'-six,  it  would  be  no  easy 
matter  to  get  her  married.  In  such  a 
case  people  will  ask  themselves  how  it  is 
that  a  j'oung  woman  has  remained  upon 
the  shelf  so  long.  Indeed  there  is  already 
a  great  deal  too  much  talk  in  our  circle 
about  Cecile 's  position ;  we  have  ex- 
hausted all  the  ordinary  excuses,  such  as, 
'She  is  veiy  young,"  'She  is  perfectly 
happ\' at  home,'  'She  is  hard  to  please, 
she  wants  to  marry  a  man  of  family.' 
People  are  beginning  to  laugh  at  us,  I 
feel  suite  of  it.  Besides,  Cecile  is  tired  of 
waiting  ;  she  sutTers,  poor  little — " 

"  Suffers  !  In  wliat  way  ?  "  asked  Pons, 
stupidly. 

"Why,"  replied  her  mother,  in  the 
tones  of  a  duenna,  "she  feels  mortified  at 
seeing  all  her  companions  married  before 
her." 

"  But  what  has  happened,  cousin,  since 
the  last  time  I  had  the  pleasure  of  dining 
here,  that  you  should  be  thinking  of  men 


cousm  PONS. 


of  forty-eight?"  humbly  inquired  the 
poor  musician. 

"  Why,  this  has  happened,"  said  Mad- 
ame de  Marville.  "  We  were  to  have  had 
an  interview  with  a  counselor  of  the  court, 
who  lias  a  son  aged  thirty,  and  whose 
fortune  is  considerable.  Monsieur  de  Mar- 
ville would,  by  sacrificing  a  certain  sum, 
have  procured  for  the  son  the  post  of 
referendary  at  the  Court  of  Accounts, 
where  he  is  already  employed  as  a  super- 
numei-ary  ;  wlien,  lo,  and  behold  !  thej' 
come  and  tell  us  that  the  young  fellow 
has  been  mad  enough  to  rush  off  to  Italy, 
on  the  track  of  a  duchess  from  Mabille. 
It  is  merely  a  refusal  in  disguise.  They 
think  that  a  young  man,  who,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  death  of  his  mother,  is  in 
the  present  enjoyment  of  an  income  of 
thirty  thousand  francs,  is  too  good  for  us. 
So  you  must  pardon  us  our  bad  temper, 
dear  cousin ;  you  came  upon  us  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  crisis." 

While  Pons  was  cudgeling  his  brains 
for  one  of  those  complimentary  rejoinders 
which  always  came  to  him  too  late,  when 
he  was  in  the  presence  of  an  Amphitryon 
whom  he  feared,  in  came  Madeleine,  who 
handed  Madame  Camusot  a  little  note, 
and  stood  waiting  for  the  answer.  The 
billot  ran  as  follows : 

"  How  would  it  be,  dear  mamma,  if  we 
were  to  pretend  that  this  little  note  has 
been  sent  to  us  from  the  Palace  of  Justice 
by  my  father,  directing  you  to  take  me 
with  you  to  dine  at  his  friend's,  with  a 
view  to  renemng  the  negotiations  for  my 
marriage  ?  Cousin  Pons  would  then  go 
away  and  leave  us  at  liberty  to  prosecute 
our  plans  with  reference  to  the  Popinots." 

"By  whom  did  your  master  send  this 
note  ?  "  asked  the  president's  wife,  em- 
phatically. 

"By  one  of  the  palace  attendants," 
replied  Madeleine,  the  lean,  unblushingly. 

By  this  answer  to  her  mistress's  ques- 
tion the  old  waiting-woman  intimated  that 
she  had  helped  the  disconcerted  damsel  to 
hatch  this  little  plot. 

"  Say  that  my  daughter  and  I  will  be 
there  at  half-past  five." 


So  soon  as  Madeleine  had  left  the  room 
Madame  Camusot  turned  to  Pons  with 
that  look  of  mock  amenity  which  excites, 
in  a  sensitive  mind,  a  sensation  akin  to 
that  produced  by  a  mixture  of  vinegar 
and  milk  upon  the  palate  of  an  epicure, 
and  said  : 

"My  dear  cousin,  dinner  has  been  or- 
dered ;  but  you  must  eat  it  without  our 
company;  for  my  husband  writes  to  in- 
form me  that  the  marriage  scheme  is  on 
foot  again,  and  that  we  are  to  dine  with 
the  counselor.  You  know  well  that  jo\x 
and  I  don't  stand  upon  ceremony  with  one 
another.  Make  yourself  perfectly  at  home 
here.  (You  see  how  frank  I  am  with  you, 
from  whom  I  have  no  secrets.)  I  am  sure 
you  would  not  like  to  be  the  cause  of  my 
Uttle  angel's  marriage  being  frustrated, 
would  you  ?  " 

"I,  cousin,  I ;  who,  on  the  contrary, 
would  like  to  find  a  husband  for  her  ;  but 
in  the  sphere  in  which  I  move — " 

"Your  chances  are  certainly  very 
slig'ht,"  chimed  in  Madame  Camusot,  in- 
solently. "  So  j-ou  will  stay,  won't  you? 
Cecile  will  keep  you  company  while  I  am 
di-essing." 

"  Oh  !  cousin,  I  can  dine  elsewhere," 
said  the  good  fellow  ;  for  though  great 
was  the  pain  he  felt  at  the  manner  in 
which  the  lady  taxed  him  v.-ith  his  indi- 
gence, his  horror  at  the  prospect  of  being 
left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  servants 
was  greater  still. 

"  But  why  dine  elsewhere  ?  Dinner  is 
ready ;  the  servants  would  eat  it  if  you 
didn't." 

When  Pons  heard  this  terrific  phrase, 
he  jumped  up  as  if  he  had  received  the 
discharge  of  a  galvanic  batterj',  bowed 
distantly  to  his  cousin,  and  went  in  search 
of  his  spencer.  The  door  of  Cecile's  bed- 
room, which  opened  into  the  little  ante- 
room, stood  ajar  :  so  that  Pons,  glancing 
at  the  mirror  in  front  of  him,  saw  the 
young  lady  shaking  her  sides  with  laugh- 
ter and  communicating  witli  her  mother 
by  means  of  nods  and  gestui'es  which 
plainly  showed  the  old  musician  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  some  unworthy  hoax. 
Restraining  his  tears,  he  slowly  descended 
the  staircase,  knowing  that  he  had  re- 


58 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


ceived  his  dismissal  from  that  house, 
though  ignorant  why  he  had  received  it. 
"I  am  too  old  now,"  said  he  to  himself. 
"  The  world  hates  old  age  and  poverty — 
two  ugly  things.  In  future  I  will  go  no- 
where without  an  invitation."  Heroic 
phrase ! 

The  door  of  the  kitchen,  which  wasujion 
the  ground-floor  opposite  to  the  porter's 
lodge,  was  frequentlj'^  left  open ;  as  it 
often  is  in  those  houses  which  are  occupied 
by  their  owners,  and  of  which  the  car- 
liage  gates  are  always  shut.  So  Pons 
could  hear  the  laug-literof  the  cook  and  &f 
the  footman,  to  whom  Madeleine  was  re- 
tailing the  trick  that  had  been  played 
upon  Pons — for  she  did  not  suppose  he 
would  evacuate  the  place  so  promptly. 
The  footman,  for  his  part,  highly  approved 
of  the  joke  that  had  been  perpetrated  at 
the  expense  of  the  constant  visitor,  who, 
as  the  footman  said,  never  gave  him  more 
than  half  a  crown  by  way  of  Christmas- 
box  !  " 

"  Yes ;  but  still,  if  he  takes  the  hump 
and  don't  come  back  any  more,  it  will  be 
three  francs  out  of  our  pockets  on  New- 
year's-day,"  remarked  the  cook. 

"  And  pray  how  is  he  to  know  anything 
about  it  ?  "  said  the  footman,  in  answer 
to  the  cook. 

"Bah!"  said  Madeleine.  "A  little 
sooner  or  a  little  later,  what  does  it  mat- 
ter to  us  f  The  folks  at  whose  houses  he 
dines  are  so  heartily  sick  of  him  that  he'll 
soon  be  sent  about  his  business  by  them 
one  and  all." 

Just  at  this  moment  the  voice  of  the 
old  musician  was  heard  calling  to  the 
portress.  "The  string,  if  you  please." 
This  doleful  cry  was  received  in  the 
kitchen  with  the  deepest  silence. 

"He  was  listening,"  said  the  footman. 

"  Well,  so  much  the  worser,  or  rather 
so  much  the  better,"  retorted  Madeleine. 
"  He's  a  regular  scum." 

The  poor  man — whom  not  a  word  of 
what  passed  in  the  kitchen  had  escaped 
— overheard  this  last  phrase  also  ;  and 
proceeded  homeward  in  a  state  closely 
resembling  that  of  an  old  woman  after 
a  desperate  struggle  with  a  murderer. 
Muttering  to  himself,  he  hastened  onward 


with  convulsive  speed ;  for  wounded  honor 
hurried  him  along  like  a  straw  driven  be- 
fore a  hurricane,  until  at  five  o'clock  he 
found  himself  upon  the  Boulevard  du 
Temple  without  in  the  least  knowing  how 
he  got  there ;  yet,  sti-ange  to  saj',  he  did 
not  feel  in  the  slightest  degree  hungry. 
But  in  order  that  the  reader  may  under- 
stand the  revolution  in  Pons's  domestic 
arrangements  that  his  return  home  at 
this  unwonted  hour  was  about  to  pro- 
duce, the  promised  information  about 
Madame  Cibot  must  here  be  given. 


VI. 


specimen  of  the  porter  (male  and 
female). 

The  Rue  de  Normandie  is  one  of  those 
streets  in  the  midst  of  which  a  man  may 
easily'  fancy  himself  in  the  country.  It 
is  a  street  in  which  the  grass  grows  lux- 
uriantly, in  which  a  passenger  creates  a 
sensation,  and  the  inhabitants  of  which 
all  know  each  other.  The  houses  in  it 
were  built  in  the  reign  of  Henri  Quatre, 
at  a  time  when  it  was  intended  to  build  a 
quarter,  each  of  whose  streets  should  bear 
the  name  of  a  province,  and  in  the  center 
of  which  there  was  to  be  a  grand  square 
dedicated  to  France.  The  idea  of  the 
Quartier  dc  I'Europe  was  a  plagiary  of 
this  scheme  ;  for  the  world  is  perpetually 
repeating  itself  in  all  places  and  in  all 
things — even  in  matters  of  speculation. 

The  house  in  which  the  two  musicians 
dwelt  was  originally  an  old  mansion  with 
a  court  in  front  of  it  and  a  garden  in  the 
rear ;  but  a  street  fagade  was  added  to 
it  during  that  part  of  the  last  century 
when  the  Marais  was  in  so  much  vogue. 
The  two  friends  occupied  the  whole  of  the 
second  floor  of  the  original  mansion. 

This  double  house  belonged  to  a  Mon- 
sieur Pillerault,  an  octogenaiian,  who  left 
the  management  of  it  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Cibot, 
who  had  acted  as  his  door-keepers  for  six- 
and-tvi^enty  years.  Now  since  the  emolu- 
ments of  a  porter  in  the  Mai'ais  are  not 


COUSIN    PONS. 


59 


I 


sufficient  to  enable  him  to  live  upon  them 
alone.  Monsieur  Cibot  to  his  perquisites— 
the  sou  in  the  livre  and  the  fagot  in  the 
load — added  the  produce  of  his  personal 
industry ;  he  was  what  many  a  porter 
is — a  tailor.  As  time  rolled  on  Cibot 
gave-  up  worldug  as  a  journe^'man ;  for, 
in  consequence  of  the  confidence  reposed 
in  him  by  the  small  shop-keepers  in  the 
neighborhood,  he  acquired  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  patching,  renovating,  and 
fine-drawing  all  coats  to  be  found  within 
a  perimeter  of  three  streets.  His  lodge 
was  large  and  healthy,  having  a  bedroom 
annexed  to  it ;  so  that  the  Cibot  house- 
hold was  regarded  by  all  the  gentlemen 
who  exercised  the  functions  of  porter  in 
the  neighborhood  as  one  of  the  most 
highly  favored  establishments  of  its 
kind. 

Cibot  was  a  short,  stunted  little  man, 
who,  by  dint  of  sitting  day  after  day, 
with  his  legs  crossed  Turk-wise  beneath 
him  upon  a  table  that  was  exactly  on  a 
level  with  the  grated  window  that  looked 
upon  the  street,  had  acquired  a  complex- 
ion that  was  almost  olive-colored.     His 

• 

trade  brought  him  in  about  two  shillings 
a  day,  and  he  still  pursued  it  in  spite  of 
his  fiftj'-eight  years  ;  but  then  fifty -eight 
is  the  prime  of  life  for  a  porter  ;  when  he 
has  reached  that  age  his  lodge  has  be- 
come to  him  what  the  shell  is  to  the 
oyster,  and  moreover — he  is  knotcn  in 
the  district! 

Madame  Cibot,  who  had  once  been  fa- 
mous as  the  pretty  oyster-girl  of  the 
Cadran-Bleu,  had  quitted  her  post  in 
that  establishment  for  the  sake  of  Cibot 
when  she  had  attained  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight,  and  had  run  the  gauntlet  of  all 
those  adventures  which  a  pretty  oyster- 
girl  encounters  without  the  trouble  of 
seeking  them.  The  beauty  of  women  be- 
longing to  the  lower  classes  is  short- 
lived ;  especiall3'  when  they  posted,  like 
an  espalier-tree,  at  the  door  of  a  restau- 
rant, where  their  features  grow  coarse 
through  exposure  to  the  heat-rays  of  the 
kitchen,  and  their  skin  is  interpenetrated 
by  the  contents  of  many  a  half-emptied 
wine-bottle,  shared  with  the  waiters  of 
the    establishment  ;    in    fact,   no    flower 


matures  more  rapidly  than  that  of  a 
pretty  oyster-girl. 

Fortunately  for  Madame  Cibot,  mar- 
riage and  the  life  of  a  portress  came  to 
her  in  time  to  preserve  her  charms  ;  and 
accordingly  a  perfect  model  for  Rubens, 
she  retained  a  masculine  style  of  beauty 
which  her  rivals' of  the  Rue  de  Normandie 
sought  to  disparage,  calling  her  '•  a  great 
fat  lollop."  The  tones  of  her  skin  might 
be  compared  to  the  appetizing  glaze  upon 
lumps  of  Isigny  butter,  while,  notwith- 
standing her  stoutness,  she  displayed  an 
incomparable  agility  in  the  exercise  of 
her  calling.  Madame  Cibot  had  now  ar- 
rived at  that  time  of  life  when  women  of 
her  type  are  obliged  to — shave ;  in  other 
words,  she  was  forty-eight.  A  portress 
with  a  mustache  is  one  of  the  strongest 
guarantees  for  order  and  security  that  a 
landlord  can  possibly  have  !  Had  Dela- 
croix but  seen  Madame  Cibot,  leaning 
proudly  on  the  handle  of  her  broom,  he 
would  assuredh'  have  painted  her  in  the 
character  of  Bellona !  Singular  as  the 
statement  may  appear,  it  was  ordained 
that  the  position  of  the  Cibots,  baron  and 
feme  (to  use  the  legal  st^'le)  should  one 
day  influence  the  destiny  of  the  two 
friends.  The  faithful  historian  there- 
fore is  obliged  to  enter  into  sundry 
details  concerning  the  porter  and  his 
wife. 

The  house  which  they  superintended 
brought  in  about  eight  thousand  francs 
a  year ;  for,  in  that  part  of  it  which  abut- 
ted on  the  street,  there  were  three  com- 
plete sets  of  apartments  occupying  the 
whole  depth  of  the  building ;  whUe  in  the 
old  mansion  that  stood  between  court  and 
garden  there  were  three  other  sets.  Then, 
in  addition,  there  was  a  shop  that  opened 
on  to  the  street  and  was  occupied  by  a 
marine  store  dealer  named  Remonencq, 
who,  having  for  some  months  past  as- 
sumed the  rank  of  an  old  curiosity  dealer, 
was  so  well  acquainted  with  Pons's  at- 
tainments in  bric-a-brac-ology  that  from 
the  recesses  of  his  shop  he  would  bow  to 
the  old  musician  as  he  passed  to  and  from 
the  house.  The  rental  of  the  house  then 
being  about  eight  thousand  francs,  the 
sou  per  livre  yielded  about  four  hundred 


60 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


francs  per  annum  to  the  Cibots,  who, 
moreover,  had  nothing  to  pay  for  lodg-- 
ing  or  fuel.  Now,  since  Cibofs  earning-s 
amounted,  on  an  everage,  to  between 
seven  and  eight  hundred  francs  a  year, 
the  income  of  the  worthy  couple  (Chiist- 
mas-boxes  included)  reached  a  total  of 
sixteen  hundred  fi-ancs,  every  doit  of 
which  they  spent ;  for  the  scale  of  living 
was  higher  than  that  of  the  lower  orders. 
"  We  can  live  but  once,"  was  a  favorite 
saying  with  Madame  Cibot,  who,  born 
during  the  Revolution,  was,  as  is  clear, 
quite  ignorant  of  the  catechism. 

Throug-h  her  connection  with  the  Cad- 
ran-Bleu,  this  portress  with  the  scornful 
orange-colored  eye  had  acquired — and  she 
still  retained — a  certain  skill  in  the  art  of 
cookery  which  made  her  husband  an  object 
of  QTXYy  to  all  his  fellow-poi'ters.  Thus  it 
came  to  pass  that  the  Cibots,  having  ar- 
rived at  full  maturity,  and  being  indeed 
on  the  verge  of  old  age,  had  not  laid  by 
even  so  much  as  a  hundred  francs.  Well 
clothed  and  well  fed,  they  were,  more- 
over, looked  up  to  in  the  neighborhood 
by  reason  of  their  six-and-twenty  years 
of  unimpeachable  integrity.  If  they  had 
no  money  neither  did  thej'  owe  a  single 
centime,  or  nune  centime,  as  Madame 
Cibot  phrased  it ;  for  the  good  lady,  in 
talking,  was  lavish  of  her  n's.  Thus  she 
would  sa^'  to  her  husband  :  "  You  n'are 
n'a  love."  Why?  As  well  might  jou 
ask  the  reason  of  her  indifference  with 
regard  to  religion. 

But  while  both  of  the  Cibots  prided 
themselves  on  their  open  and  above- 
board  mode  of  life,  on  the  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held  throughout  six 
or  seven  neighboring  streets,  and  on 
the  liberty,  which  their  landlord  con- 
ceded to  them,  of  ruling  the  house  ac- 
cording to  their  own  good  will  and 
pleasure,  thej'  groaned  in  secret  over 
their  lack  of  invested  capital.  Cibot 
complained  of  pains  in  his  hands  and 
legs,  and  Madame  Cibot  was  heard  to 
lament  that  her  "poor  Cibot"  was  still 
obliged  to  work  at  his  time  of  life.  The 
day  is  coming  when,  after  thirty  years 
of  such  a  life,  a  porter  wiU  accuse  the 
government  of  injustice,  and  deem  him- 


self entitled  to  be  enrolled  in  the  Legion 
of  Honor  ! 

Whenever  the  tittle-tattle  of  the  dis- 
trict spread  abroad  the  news  that  such 
and  such  a  servant,  after  eight  or  ten 
years'  service,  had  been  put  down  in  a 
will  for  an  annuity  of  three  or  four  hun- 
dred francs,  lodge  after  lodge  resounded 
with  lamentations,  which  may  give  some 
idea  of  the  envy  that  pervades,  tlie  hum- 
bler walks  of  life  in  Paris.  "Ah!  it 
never  happens  to  its  porters  to  be  men- 
tioned in  a  wiU  !  We  haven't  a  chance  ! 
And  yet  Ave  ai'e  more  useful  than  ser- 
vants. Ours  is  a  position  of  trust ;  we 
help  to  make  monej" ;  'tis  we  who  guard 
the  granary-;  and  yet  we  are  treated 
just  like  dogs,  and  there's  an  end  of 
it."  "Life  is  all  chance  work,"  Cibot 
would  say,  as  he  took  a  coat  home.  "  If 
I  had  only  left  Cibot  to  look  after  the 
lodge,"  Madame  Cibot  would  exclaim, 
as  with  her  hands  resting  on  her  salient 
hips  she  stood  chatting  to  a  neighbor, 
"if  I  had  but  left  Cibot  to  look  after  the 
lodge,  and  taken  a  situation  as  cook,  we 
should  have  had  as  good  as  thirty'  thou- 
sanfl  francs  invested  by  this  time  !  I've 
made  a  mess  of  life  all  along  o'  living 
rent  free  in  a  good  snug  lodge,  and  want- 
ing for  nothing." 

When,  in  1836,  the  two  friends  came 
and  occupied  in  common  the  second  story 
of  the  old  mansion,  thej'  caused  a  kind  of 
revolution  in  the  Cibot  household ;  for 
both  Schtuucke  and  Pons  having  been 
accustomed  to  employ  the  porter  or 
portress  of  the  house  in  which  they 
lived  as  their  housekeeper,  were  entirely 
of  one  mind  when  they  installed  them- 
selves in  the  Rue  de  Normandie  as  to 
coming  to  some  arrangement  with  Mad- 
ame Cibot.  Madame  Cibot,  accordingly, 
became  their  housekeeper  at  a  salary-  of 
twenty -five  francs  per  month — that  is  to 
say,  twelve  and  a  half  francs  for  each  of 
them. 

After  the  lapse  of  a  year  the  promoted 
poi'tress  reigned  supreme  over  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  two  old  bachelors  just  as 
she  reigned  supreme  over  the  house  of 
Monsieur  PiUerault,  the  great-uncle  of 
Madame  la  Comtesse  Popinot ;  their  busi- 


cousm  PONS. 


61 


ness  was  her  business ;  and  she  always 
spoke  of  them  as  "Mj'two  gentlemen." 
In  short,  when  she  found  that  the  Pair 
of  Nut-Crackers  were  gentle  as  lambs, 
eas^-going  and  unsuspicious,  in  fact 
thorough  children,  she  obeyed  the  in- 
stincts ,  of  her  heart  —  the  heart  of  a 
woman  of  the  people — and  began  to  jiro- 
tect  and  worship  her  "  two  gentlemen  ;  " 
and  to  serve  them  with  a  devotion  so 
genuine  that  she  even  gave  tliem  a  few 
words  of  warning  and  shielded  them  from 
all  the  impositions  which  swell  the  cost  of 
living  in  Paris.  Thus  for  five-and-twenty 
francs  a  month  the  two  bachelors  un- 
designedly and  unwittingh'  obtained  a 
mother;  and — the  value  of  that  "mother" 
once  perceived — proceeded  to  acknowledge 
it  by  artless  eulogies  and  thanks  and  by 
little  presents,  which  all  tended  to  lighten 
the  bonds  of  this  domestic  alliance.  Mad- 
ame Cibot  set  a  thousand  times  as  much 
store  on  being  appreciated  at  her  true 
value  as  she  did  upon  being  paid:  and 
this  sentiment,  as  eveiwbody  knows,  in- 
variably'' makes  up  for  slender  wages. 
Cibot  undertook  errands,  repairs,  all  that 
appertained  to  his  department,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  wants  of  his  wife's  "two 
gentlemen,"  for  half  price. 

To  conclude,  in  tlie  second  year  after 
the  installation  of  Pons  and  Schmucke  in 
the  Rue  de  Normandie  a  fresh  element  of 
friendship  was  introduced  into  the  alli- 
ance between  the  porter's  lodge  and  the 
second  floor.  In  the  indulgence  of  his  in- 
dolence and  his  desire  to  shirk  the  mate- 
rial cares  of  life,  Schmucke  made  a  bar- 
gain with  Madame  Cibot,  whereby  for 
fifteen  sous  a  day — that  is,  forty -five 
francs  per  month,  she  undertoolv  to  pro- 
vide him  with  breakfast  and  dinner ; 
whereupon  Pons,  finding  that  his  friend's 
breakfast  was  very  satisfactory,  followed 
suit  by  making  an  arrangement  to  pay 
eighteen  francs  a  month  for  breakfast. 
This  system  of  provisioning,  which  swelled 
the  gross  revenues  of  the  lodge  to  the  ex- 
tent of  about  ninetj'  francs  per  month, 
made  the  two  tenants  inviolable  beings, 
angels,  cherubim,  gods.  Indeed,  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  the  King  of  the 
French — who  knows  something  of  the  sub- 


ject— be  served  so  well  as  were  the  Pair  of 
Nut-Crackers.  The  milk  thej-  drank  came 
unwatered  from  the  can ;  they  saw  the 
newspapers  of  the  tenants  of  the  first  and 
third  floors  gratis — for  the  occupants  of 
those  floors  rose  late,  and  would  have 
been  told,  in  case  of  emergencj',  that  their 
papers  had  not  ye\>  come — and,  moreover, 
Madame  Cibot  kept  the  clothes,  the 
rooms,  the  landing  outside  the  rooms,  in 
short  all  the  belongings  and  surroundings 
of  the  two  old  men  in  a  state  of  Flemish 
neatness.  As  for  Schmucke,  he  was  hap- 
pier than  he  had  ever  hoped  to  be ;  Mad- 
ame Cibot  made  life  easj'  to  him  :  he  gave 
her  sis  fi'ancs  a  month  to  look  to  the 
washing  and  mending  of  his  linen,  and 
fifteen  francs  a  month  he  spent  upon 
tobacco.  These  tjiree  items  of  expendi- 
ture reached  a  monthly  total  of  sixtj'-six 
francs ;  which  multiplied  by  twelve  makes 
seven  hundred  and  ninety-two  francs ;  add 
two  hundred  and  twenty  francs  for  rent 
and  taxes,  and  you  have  a  total  of  one 
thousand  and  twelve  francs.  Schmucke's 
clothes  were  made  by  Cibot,  and  the  mean 
cost  of  these  necessaries  was  a  hundred 
and  fifty  francs;  so  that  this  profound 
philosopher  lived  upon  twelve  hundred 
francs  a  year.  How  many  persons  in 
Europe,  whose  one  idea  is  to  go  and  live 
at  Paris,  will  be  agreeably  surprised  to 
learn  that  it  is  possible  to  live  there  in 
comfort  on  an  income  of  twelve  hundred 
francs  in  the  Rue  de  Normandie  in  the 
Marais  under  the  wing  of  a  Madame 
Cibot ! 

When  Madame  Cibot  saw  old  Pons  re- 
turning home  at  five  in  the  evening  she 
was  utterly  astounded.  Not  only  was 
the  thing  itself  unprecedented,  but  "her 
gentleman  "  passed  her  without  saluting 
her. 

"  Well,  Cibot !  "  said  she  to  her  hus- 
band, '•  Monsieur  Pons  must  either  have 
come  in  for  a  milUon  or  gone  mad  I  " 

"It  certainly  looks  like  it,"  rephed 
Cibot,  dropping  a  coatsleeve  in  which  he 
was  inserting  what  in  tailors'  slang  is 
called  a  poniard. 


• 


62 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


I 


VII. 

A  LIVING   COPY  OF   THE   FABLE   OF  THE 
TWO   PIGEONS. 

At  the  wery  moment  when  Pons  had 
terminated  his  automatic  journej'  home- 
ward, Madame  Cibot  was  putting  the  fin- 
ishing touch  to  Schmuclvo"s  dinner,  which 
consisted  of  a  certain  ragout  whose  savor 
pervaded  the  entire  coui't.  The  dish  con- 
sisted of  pieces  of  boiled  beef  bought  at  a 
cook-shop — which  did  a  httle  in  the  re- 
graling  line — and  fricasseed  with  butter 
and  fineljr  chopped  onions  until  the  meat 
and  onions  had  entirely  absorbed  the  but- 
ter, so  as  to  give  this  porter's  dainty  the 
appearance  of  a  fry.  This  dish  concocted 
con  amore  by  Madame  Cibot  for  her  hus- 
band and  Schniucke,  between  whom  she 
divided  it,  sufficed,  when  flanked  by  a 
bottle  of  beer  and  a  morsel  of  cheese,  for 
the  wants  of  the  old  German  music-mas- 
ter ;  and  rest  assured  that  not  even  King 
Solomon  himself  in  all  his  glory  dined  any 
better  than  Schmucke  did.  This  dish  of 
beef  fricasseed  with  onions ;  fragments  of 
chicken  in  ragout ;  at  one  time  some  cold 
meat  dressed  with  vinegar  and  parsley 
and  a  bit  of  fish  served  up  with  a  sauce 
of  Madame  Cibot's  own  invention  — a 
sauce  so  piquant  that  with  it  a  mother 
might  have  eaten  her  own  baby  quite  un- 
suspectingly— at  another  a  slice  or  two  of 
venison ;  such  according  to  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  the  provisions  re-sold  by 
the  restaurants  on  the  boulevard  to  the 
cook-shop  in  the  Rue  Boucherat ;  such 
was  the  usual  fare  of  Schmucke  ;  who 
accepted  without  a  murmur  whatever 
"goot  Montame  Zipod "  provided  for 
him.  And  good  Madame  Cibot  had,  day 
by  day,  curtailed  the  bill  of  fare  until  she 
had  brought  it  within  the  purchasing- 
power  of  twenty  sous. 

"  I'll  go  and  find  n'out  what'n  has  hap- 
pened to  him,  poor  dear  man,"  quoth 
Madame  Cibot  to  her  spouse,  "  for  here's 
Monsieur  Schmucke's  dinnerquite  ready." 

Thereupon  Madame  Cibot  covered  the 
deep  earthenware  dish  with  a  plate  of 
common  cliina,  and,  in  spite  of  her  age, 
contrived  to  reach  the  apartments  of  the 


two  friends  just  as  Schmucke  was  opening 
the  door  for  Pons. 

'•Vat  is  de  matter  wit  you,  mein  goot 
friend  ? "  said  the  German,  startled  at 
the  total  alteration  in  Pons's  counte- 
uance. 

"  I  will  tell  you  all :  but  first-  I  am 
going  to  dine  with  you." 

"  To  tine  !  To  tine!"  exclaimed  the 
enraptured  Schmucke.  "But  no;  dat  is 
imbossible,"  added  he,  as  the  thought  of 
his  friend's  gastrolatr^'  occurred  to  him. 

At  this  juncture  the  old  German  caught 
sight  of  Madame  Cibot  (who,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  her  rights  as  lawful  [house]  wife, 
was  listening  to  the  conversation),  and 
one  of  those  bright  ideas,  which  flash  into 
the  mind  of  genuine  friendship  only,  oc- 
curred to  him.  Darting  to  the  door,  he 
dragged  her  out  on  to  the  landing,  and 
said  ■  to  her  : 

"  Montame  Zipod,  dis  goot  Bons  lofs 
goot  tings  ;  go  to  de  Gatran-Bleu  ;  order 
ein  nice  little  tinner  ;  anjovies,  maggaroni 
— ein  feast  fit  for  Lugullus  !  " 

"What  may  that  be?  "  inquired  Mad- 
ame Cibot. 

"Why!  Feal  a  la  pourcheoise,"  re- 
plied Schmucke,  "  ein  goot  feesh,  ein  bot- 
tle of  glai'et,  all  de  best  tings  dat  dey 
have :  some  grogettes  of  rise,  and  some 
smoked  bagon  !  Bay  for  it ;  but  say  not 
one  wort,  I  will  rebay  you  to-morrow 
morning. ' ' 

When  Schmucke  returned  to  the  room 
his  face  wore  a  joyous  expression,  and  he 
was  rubbing  his  hands  :  but  as  he  listened 
to  the  recital  of  the  unlooked-for  troubles 
that  had  just  swept  down  upon  the  heart 
of  his  friend,  the  features  of  the  old  Ger- 
man gradually  resumed  an  expression  of 
amazement.  He  tried  to  console  Pons  by 
painting  the  world  from  a  Schmuckean 
point  of  view;  Paris  was  simply  a  per- 
petual whirlwind ;  Parisians,  both  men 
and  women,  were  borne  along  in  a  waltz 
of  furious  rapidity ;  one  ought  to  be  quite 
independent  of  the  world,  which  regards 
outward  appearances  only,  and  cares  noth- 
mg  for  "  de  inner  man,"  said  Schmucke. 
Then  he  proceeded  to  relate  for  the  hun- 
dredth time  how  the  only  three  pupils 
whom  he  had  ever  loved,  and  who  had  a 


COUSIN    PONS. 


63 


tender  regard  for  him^young  ladies  for 
whom  he  would  lay  down  his  life,  and 
who  were  even  so  good  as  to  allow  him 
a  small  yearly  pension  of  nine  hundi'ed 
francs,  to  which  each  contributed  her 
share  of  about  three  hundred  francs — 
had  entirely  forgotten  to  come  and  see 
him,  and  had  not  been  able  to  receive  him 
when  he  called  upon  them  any  time  dur- 
ing the  last  three  3'ears :  it  is  true  that 
Schmucke  used  to  call  upon  these  ladies 
of  fashion  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  : 
and,  moreover,  that  the  quarterly  install- 
ments of  his  allowance  were  paid  into  the 
hands  of  notaries. 

"And  yet,"  pursued  Schmucke,  "  dey 
have  hearts  of  gold ;  in  fact  dey  are  my 
leetle  Saint  Ceeilias,  jarming  ladies,  Mon- 
tame  de  Bordentuere,  Montame  de  Fen- 
tenesse,  and  Montame  di  Tillet.  When  I 
see  dem  it  is  in  de  Jambs-Elysees,  and 
dey  do  not  see  me ;  but  dey  do  lofe  me 
veil,  and  I  could  go  and  tine  wit  dem ; 
day  would  be  ferry  glat ;  I  gould  go  to 
deir  gountry  seats ;  but  I  moche  prefer 
to  be  wit  my  friend  Bons,  begause  I  gan 
see  him  whenever  I  like,  and  effery  taj^" 

Pons  seized  the  hand  of  Schmucke,  and, 
placing  it  between  his  own  hands,  gave  it 
a  squeeze  which  was  intended  to  convej' 
all  the  feelings  that  he  could  not  express 
in  words  ;  and  for  several  minutes  the 
two  friends  remained  thus  hand  in  hand, 
like  two  lovers  meeting  after  a  protracted 
separation. 

"Tine  here  effery  tay ! "  resumed 
Schmucke,  who  was  silently  invoking  a 
blessing  on  the  crueltj"^  of  Madame  Camu- 
sot.  "  Gome  now  !  we  will  pric-a-prac 
togedder ;  and  de  tevil  will  neff er  put  his 
tail  into  our  home." 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  under- 
stand the  full  heroism  of  the  words — 
"we  will  pric-a-prac  togedder"  —  he 
should  be  informed  that  Schmucke's  igno- 
rance of  bric-a-brac-ology  was  ci'ass.  It 
was  only  the  strength  of  his  friendship 
that  had  preserved  him  from  breaking 
some  of  the  objects  contained  in  the  salon 
and  closet  that  had  been  given  up  to 
Pons  as  a  museum.  Schmucke — whose 
whole  mind  was  devoted  to  music,  who 
composed  music  for  his  own  sake — looked 


upon  all  the  little  knickknacks  of  his  friend 
much  as  a  fish  (supposing  that  a  fish  could 
receive  a  card  of  invitation)  might  look 
upon  a  flower-show  at  the  Luxembourg. 
He  respected  these  wonderful  works, 
simply  because  Pons  showed  so  much 
respect  for  them  when  he  was  dusting  his 
treasures;  and  Schmucke, would  respond 
to  the  ecstasies  of  his  friend  with  a — 
"Yes,  it  is  ferry  pretty"  —  just  as  a 
mother  replies,  with  fond  unmeaning 
phrases,  to  the  gestures  of  a  child  that 
is  too  young  to  talk.  Since  the  two 
friends  had  lived  together.  Pons  had 
bartered  his  time-piece  for  another,  to 
Schmucke's  knowledge,  no  fewer  than 
seven  times ;  and  on  each  occasion  had 
gained  by  the  exchange.  Pons  now  pos- 
sessed a  magnificent  time-piece  hy  Boule, 
an  ebony  time-piece  inlaid  vnt\\  copper 
and  carved,  a  time-piece  in  Boule's  fii'st 
manner;  (for  Boule  had  two  manners, 
just  as  Raphael  had  three :  in  his  first 
manner  Boule  married  copper  to  ebony ; 
in  his  second,  against  his  own  conviction, 
he  devoted  himself  to  tortoise-shell,  and 
accomplished  marvels,  in  endeavoring  to 
outdo  his  competitors,  the  inventors  of 
tortoise-shell  marquetrj').  But  Schmucke, 
in  spite  of  Pons's  learned  dissertations,  did 
not  perceive  the  slightest  difference  be- 
tween the  magnificent  time-piece  fn  Boule's 
first  manner,  and  its  six  predecessors. 
Still,  seeing  how  much  pleasure  Pons  de- 
rived from  these  baubles,  as  Schmucke 
termed  them,  Schmucke  took  more  care 
of  them  than  Pons  himself  did. 

We  need  not,  then,  be  astonished  that 
Schmucke's  heroic  exclamation  should 
have  had  power  to  subdue  the  despair  of 
Pons  ;  the  old  German's — "We  will  pric- 
a-prac  togedder  " — meant :  "  I  will  spend 
money  on  bric-a-brac  if  you  will  dine  at 
home,  with  me." 

"Dinner  is  on  the  table,  gentlemen," 
said  Madame  Cibot,  entering  the  room 
and  making  the  announcement  with  won- 
derful aplomb. 

Pons's  surprise,  when  he  saw  and  tasted 
the  dinner  provided  for  him  through 
Schmucke's  friendly  care,  may  be  readily 
imagined.  But  the  feelings  which  Pons 
now  experienced — feelings  that  arise  but 


64 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


rarely  in  a  lifetime — are  never  called  forth 
by  that  calm  unvarying' devotion  whereby 
one  friend  perpetually  intimates  to  an- 
other— '*  In  me,  j'ou  have  a  second  self ;  " 
— for  to  that  one  g-rows  accustomed.  No; 
such  feelings  as  these  owe  their  origin  to 
the  contrast  between  sucli  proofs  as  Pons 
was  now  receiving-  of  the  happiness  of 
home  life,  and  the  brutalities  that  we 
meet  with  in  society.  It  is  the  world,  it 
4s  the  world  that  incessantly  renews  tlie 
ties  which  bind  lover  to  lover  and  friend 
to  friend — when  noble  heart  is  wedded  to 
noble  heart  \)y  love  or  friendship. 

Even  thus  it  was  with  Pons  and 
Schmucke,  both  of  whom  were  affected 
even  to  tears.  Not  a  word  passed  be- 
tween them  ;  but  thej-  loved  each  other 
more  than  ever,  and,  from  time  to  time, 
exchanged  a  friendly  little  nod,  which 
acted  like  a  healing  balm  poured  into  the 
wounds  inflicted  by  Madame  Camusot's 
"pebble,"  on  tlie  heart  of  Pons. 
Schmucke,  meanwhile,  was  rubbing  his 
hands  with  such  violence  as  seriously  to 
endanger  the  skin ;  he  had  hit  upon  one 
of  those  inventions  which  surprise  a  Ger- 
man only  when  it  has  been  suddenly 
hatched  in  a  brain  congealed  by  the  re- 
spect due  to  the  sovereign  princes  of  the 
Fatherland . 

"  Mein  goot  Bons  !" — ^began  Schmucke. 

"  I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say ; 
3'ou  wish  us  to  dine  together  everj^  day." 

"  I  wish  dat  I  were  rich  enough  to  giff 
you  soche  a  dinner,  effery  day,"  replied 
the  worthy  German  in  a  melancholy  tone. 

Madame  Cibot,  to  whom  Pons  occa- 
sionally gave  an  order  for  the  boulevard 
theaters,  and  thus  raised  himself,  in  her 
affections,  to  a  level  with  her  boarder 
Schmucke,  now  interposed  with  the  fol- 
lowing suggestion  : 

"Asking  parding,  gentlemen,"  said 
she,  "for  three  francs,  I  can  provide  a 
dinner  for  two — without  wine — every  daj'; 
a  dinner  fit  to  make  you  lick  your  plates 
as  clean  as  if  they  had  been  washed." 

"De  fact  is,"  replied  Schmucke,  "dat 
on  de  tings  dat  Madame  Zipod  gooks  for 
me,  I  tine  petter  dan  de  folks  who  eat  de 
king's  Actuals." 

Animated  by  his  hopes,  the  habitually 


respectful  German  went  so  far  as  to  imi- 
tate the  irreverence  of  the  minor  journals 
by  ridiculing  the  fixed  tariff  of  the  roj'al 
table. 

"Indeed?"  said  Pons.  "Well,  I  will 
try  the  experiment  to-morrow." 

When  Schmucke  heard  this  promise  he 
sprang  from  one  end  of  the  table  to  the 
other,  dragging  with  him  tablecloth, 
dishes  and  bottles,  and  clasped  Pons  in 
an  embrace  the  intensity  of  which  can  be 
compared  only  to  tlie  eager  combination 
of  one  gas  with  another,  for  which  it  has 
a  chemical  affinity. 

"  What  happiness  !  "  cried  Schmucke; 
while  Madame  Cibot,  who  also  was 
touched,  proudly  remarked  : 

"  Then  it  is  settled  that  monsieur  will 
dine  here  every  day  !  " 

Unconscious  of  the  event  to  which  she 
was  indebted  for  the  realization  of  her 
dream,  the  worthy  matron  went  down  to 
her  lodge,  and  entered  it  with  an  air 
worthy  of  Josepha  herself,  when  she  first 
appears  upon  the  scene,  in  the  opera  of 
"William  Tell."  Dashing  down  the  plates 
and  dishes.  Dame  Cibot  called  out  to  her 
husband : 

"■  Cibot,  go  and  fetch  two  small  cups  of 
coffee  from  the  Cafe  Turc  !  And  tell  the 
waiter  who  serves  it  that  they  are  for 
me !  " 

Then  sitting  down,  and  placing  her 
hands  upon  her  powerful  knees,  Madame 
Cibot  glanced  through  the  window,  at 
the  wall  that  faced  the  house,  and  ex- 
claimed : 

"  I  will  go  this  very  evening  and  consult 
Madame  Fontaine!"  Madame  Fontaine 
was  fortune-teller  to  all  the  cooks,  ladies'- 
maids,  footmen,  porters,  etc.,  etc.,  in  the 
Marais — "  Since  these  two  gentlemen  came 
here,  we  have  put  two  thousand  francs 
into  the  savings  bank;  in  eight  years! 
What  luck  I  Now,  must  I  give  Monsieur 
Pons  full  value  for  his  money,  and  so 
attach  him  to  his  home  ?  Mistress  Fon- 
taine's hen  will  tell  me  that." 

Not  having  seen  any  relatives  call  upon 
Pons  or  Schmucke  during  the  course  of 
nearly  three  years,  Madame  Cibot  cher- 
ished the  hope  that  she  would  be  remem- 
bered in  the  wills  of  "her  gentlemen;" 


COUSIN    PONS. 


65 


and  actuated  bj'  this  avaricious  thought 
— a  tardy  g-rowth  among-  her  mustaches 
of  hitherto  untainted  probity  —  she  had 
served  the  old  men  with  redoubled  zeal. 
By  g-oing  out  to  dine,  Pons  had,  up  to  this 
date,  avoided  that  complete  subjection 
in  which  the  portress  desired  to  hold  "  her 
gentlemen."  The  nomad  existence  led  by 
the  old  troubadour-collector,  had  put  to 
flight  the  vague  ideas  of  captivation  which 
had  flitted  through  the  brain  of  Madame 
Cibot ;  but,  from  the  date  of  this  memor- 
able dinner,  they  developed  into  a  for- 
midable scheme. 

After  the  lapse  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
Madame  Cibot  re-appeared  in  the  dining- 
room,  armed  with  two  cups  of  excellent 
coffee,  flanked  by  two  liqueur-g-lasses  of 
kirschenwasser. 

'•■  Long  liff  Montame  Zipod  !  "  cried 
Schmucke;  '•'  she  guessed  what  I  wanted." 

After  the  parasite  had  indulg-ed  in  sun- 
dry Jeremiads,  which  Schmucke  com- 
bated, by  just  such  coaxing  phrases  as 
the  home-keeping  pigeon  must  have  ad- 
dressed to  the  pigeon  who  went  abroad, 
the  two  friends  sallied  forth  together. 
Schmucke  did  not  like  to  leave  his  friend 
alone,  in  the  state  to  which  he  had  been 
reduced,  by  the  conduct  of  the  Camusot 
household  (masters  and  servants).  He 
knew  Pons's  disposition  well,  and  felt 
that,  seated  in  the  orchestra,  on  his  con- 
ductor's stool,  he  might  be  assailed  by 
reflections  of  the  most  gloomy  descrip- 
tion, which  would  destroy  the  good  effect 
of  his  return  to  the  nest.  As  Schmucke 
accompanied  Pons  home,  at  about  twelve 
o'clock  at  night,  he  passed  his  arm 
through  that  of  Pons,  and,  treating  him 
as  a  lover  treats  the  mistress  whom  he 
idolizes,  pointed  out  to  him  where  the 
pavement  ended  and  where  it  recom- 
menced, and  warned  him  when  thej'  came 
to  a  gutter.  Schmucke  could  have  wished 
that  the  streets  were  paved  with  down, 
that  the  sky  were  blue,  that  the  angels 
would  fill  the  ears  of  Pons  with  the  music 
which  they  played  to  him;  for  he  had 
conquered,  in  the  heart  of  Pons,  the  last, 
the  only  province  that  was  not  alreadj' 
his  ! 

During  three  months  nearly,  Pons  dined 

Balzac — C 


with  Schmucke  every  day.  But,  in  the 
first  place,  this  alteration  in  his  mode  of 
life  compelled  him  to  curtail  his  expendi- 
ture on  bric-a-brac,  by  about  eightj"^  francs 
per  month  (for,  in  addition  to  the  forty- 
flve  francs  which  he  paid  for  his  dinner, 
his  wine  cost  him  flve-and-thirty  francs) ; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  spite  of  the 
attentions  and  German  witticisms  of 
Schmucke,  the  old  ai-tist  missed  the 
dainty  dishes,  the  liqueurs,  the  excellent 
coffee,  the  chit-chat,  the  artificial  pohte- 
ness,  the  society  and  the  scandal  of  the 
houses  in  which  he  formerly  dined.  We 
cannot,  in  the  decline  of  life,  shake  off  a 
habit  of  thirty-six  years'  standing.  'Tis 
but  an  ungenerous  fluid  that  a  hogshead 
of  wine,  at  a  hundred  and  thirty  francs 
the  hogshead,  pours  into  the  cup  of  an 
epicure ;  so  that  ever^"  time  Pons  earned 
his  glass  to  his  lips,  he  recalled,  with  a 
thousand  keen  regrets,  the  choice  vintages 
of  his  Amphitryons.  And  lastly,  at  the 
expiration  of  three  months,  the  cruel 
pangs,  which  had  wellnigh  broken  Pons's 
sensitive  heart,  were  deadened;  he  had 
forgotten  all  but  the  attractions  of  so- 
ciety, just  as  an  aged  lover  mourns  for 
the  flagrantly  unfaithful  mistress  whom 
he  has  been  compelled  to  abandon ! 

Although  Pons  did  his  best  to  conceal 
the  profound  melancholy  to  which  he  was 
a  prej-,  it  was  sufflcientl.y  obvious  that 
the  old  musician  was  the  victim  of  one  of 
those  inexplicable  maladies,  whose  seat  is 
in  the  mind.  In  order  to  throw  some 
light  upon  this  species  of  nostalgia,  aris- 
ing from  the  rupture  of  a  habit,  suffice  it 
to  point  out  one  of  those  thousand  trifles 
which  enmesh  the  mind  in  an  unyielding 
net-work,  just  as  a  coat  of  mail  incases 
the  body  in  steel : 

One  of  the  keenest  delights,  then,  of 
Pons's  former  life — a  delight  that  is  com- 
mon to  all  diners-out — was  the  surprise, 
the  impression  made  upon  the  palate  by 
the  extraordinary  dish,  the  dainty  with 
which,  in  bourgeois  circles,  the  mistress 
of  the  house  crowns  the  repast  when  she 
wants  to  give  the  dinner  a  festive  air. 
The  stomach-seated  joy  was  now  lost  to 
Pons  ;  for  Madame  Cibot  piqued  herself 
upon  presenting  him  with  a  verbal  bill 


66 


THE    HCVAX    COMEDY. 


of  fare.  Thus  the  periodic  stimuhis  of 
PoDs's  life  was  wholly  gone  :  his  diuuer 
pmceeded  without  that  element  of  sur- 
prise, which  forn\erly,  in  the  houses  of 
our  forefathei-s.  was  known  as  "  the  cov- 
ei-eti  dish  I  "  Now  all  this  was  quite  un- 
intelligible to  Schmucke  :  Pous's  delicacy 
of  feeling  deteri-ed  him  from  complaining:; 
and,  if  there  be  anything  in  the  world 
more  melancholy  than  neglected  genius, 
"tis  a  stomach  that  is  not  undei-stood  ! 
Unrequited  love — that  threadbare  catas- 
trophe— is  based  upon  an  artificial  want ; 
for  if  we  are  foi-saken  by  the  creature, 
we  can  love  the  Creator  :  He  has  treas- 
ures in  abundance  to  dispense.  But  the 
stomach  I — no,  there  is  nothing  that  can 
be  compaivd  to  the  sutferings  of  the  stom- 
ach ;  for,  before  all  things — Life  I  Pons 
mourned  over  the  loss  of  certain  creams 
— genuine  poems  ;  certain  white  sauces 
— masterpieces  of  art  ;  certain  trufiled 
fowls — sweet  as  love's  young  dream;  and. 
above  all,  those  celebrated  carps  of  Rhine 
which  are  to  be  had  only  in  Paris,  and 
oh  I  with  what  condiments  I  At  inter- 
vals, when  his  thoughts  reverted  to  Count 
Popinot's  cook,  he  would  ejaculate  — 
••  Oh,  Sophie  !  "  The  casual  passenger 
who  overheanl  this  sigh  would  have  sup- 
posed that  the  worthy  man  was  think- 
ing of  his  mistress  ;  but  he  was  thinkmg 
of  something  far  more  rare — a  well-fed 
carp  I  a  plump  carp  served  up  with  a  cer- 
tain sauce,  thin  in  the  tureen,  thick  upon 
the  tongue  —  a  sauce  that  merited  the 
Prix  Montyon.  Brooding  over  the  mem- 
ory of  these  dinners  of  other  days,  the  old 
musician — victim  of  the  homesickness  of 
the  stomach — lost  a  good  deal  of  flesh. 

Towai-d  the  end  of  January,  1S45,  that 
is  to  say,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
month  of  Pons's  probation,  theyoung  flut- 
ist, who.  like  the  vast  majority  of  Germans, 
was  christened  Wilhelm,  and — to  distin- 
guish him  from  all  the  "SVilhelms.  though 
it  by  no  means  distinguished  him  from  all 
the  Schwabs  —  was  suriiameti  Schwab, 
deemed  it  necessary  to  enlighten  Schmucke 
as  to  the  condition  of  the  leader  of  the 
orchestra,  which  was  attracting  a  good 
deal  of  attention  at  the  theater.  On  the 
occasion,  therefore,  of  a  certain  first  rep- 


resentation, when  the  old  Grcrraan  was 
necess;xrily  pre^sent.  Wilhelm  Schwab  s;iid 
to  him,  pointing  to  old  Pons,  who  was 
gloomily  taking  his  place  at  his  desk : 
"Poor  old  Pons  is  breaking;  there  is 
something  wrong  with  him  ;  his  eye  is 
diUl,  and  the  movements  of  his  arm  aie 
feebler  than  they  used  to  be." 

•'  It  is  always  so,  when  beoblc  are 
sigsty,"  replied  Schmucke. 

Like  that  mother  of  whom  we  read  in 
'•  The  Chronicles  of  the  Cauong-ate," 
whose  desire  to  have  her  son  with  her 
for  twenty-four  houi-s  longer  leads  to  his 
being  shot,  Schmucke  was  capable  of 
sacrificing  Pons  to  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
him  at  diimer  every  day. 

"Every  one  belonging  to  the  theater  is 
uneasy;  and,  as  our  first  danseuse.  Made- 
moiselle Hcloise  Brisetout,  remarks,  he 
doesn't  make  any  noise  when  he  blows 
his  nose,  now." 

Formerly,  when  the  old  musician  blew 
his  nose,  he  seemed  to  be  playing  on 
the  horn ;  so  loud  was  the  sound  which 
he  drew  from  his  long  and  deep  proboscis 
beneath  the  handkerchief:  in  fact,  one  of 
the  most  common  groimds  of  complaint 
against  Cousin  Pons,  on  the  part  of  Mad- 
ame Camusot,  was  this  very  noise. 

••  I  woot  gilT almost  anyting  to  zave  him; 
he  finds  life  wearisome,"'  said  Schmucke. 

"Upon     my     woixi,"     said     "Wilhelm' 
Schwab,  ••  Monsieur  Pons  seems,  to  me, 
to  be  so  superior  to  us  poor  devils,  that 
I  did  not  dare  to  in\ite  him  to  my  wed- 
ding :  I  am  going  to  be  married." 

"  Married  I  How  ?  In  what  way  ?  "' 
inquired  Schmucke. 

'•Oh  I  in  all  loyalty  and  honor."  re- 
plied Wilhelm  Schwab,  who  fancied  that 
Schmucke's  question  covered  a  joke — a 
joke  of  which  that  perfect  Christian  was 
utterly  incapable. 

"Now,  gentlemen,  to  your  places," 
said  Pons,  glancing  at  his  little  ai'my  in 
the  orchestra,  when  he  heard  the  tinkle 
of  the  manager's  bell. 

Thereupon  the  band  struck  up  the  over- 
ture to  "  La  Fiancee  du  Diable,"  a  fairy- 
piece  that  had  a  run  of  a  couple  of  hundred 
nights.  At  the  first  entr'acte  Wilhelm 
and  Schmucke  found  themselves  alone  t  ^ 


COUSIN    PONS. 


67 


gether  in  the  deserted  orchestra.  The 
atmosphere  of  the  house  re.g-istered  32° 
Reaumur. 

"Will  j'ou  dell  me  your  storj'?"  said 
Schmucke  to  Wilhclm. 

"Look  ;  do  you  see  that  j^oung'  man  in 
tho  stag-e-box  there  ?  Do  you  recog-nize 
him?" 

"Not  in  de least." 

"Ah  !  because  he  has  a  pair  of  yellow 
gloves  on,  and  is  surrounded  with  the 
halo  of  affluence  ;  but  for  all  that,  it  is  my 
friend  Fritz  Brunner,  of  Frankfort-on- 
Main." 

"  What  !  de  berson  who  used  to  gome 
into  de  org-hestra  and  sit  bezide  'you  to 
see  de  play  ?  " 

"  The  very  same.  Isn't  such  a  meta- 
morphosis quite  incredible  ?  " 

The  hero  of  the  promised  story  was  one 
of  those  Germans  in  whose  faces  you  can 
trace  the  somber  sarcasm  of  Goethe's 
Mephistopheles  and  the  jolly  good-fellow- 
ship of  the  romances  of  Auguste  Lafon- 
taine,  of  pacific  memory;  cunning  and 
simplicity ;  the  keen  commercial  spirit 
and  the  studied  recklessness  of  a  member 
of  the  Jockey  club ;  but,  above  all,  that 
distaste  for  life  that  puts  a  pistol  into  the 
hand  of  Wertlier,  wear3'  of  Charlotte — 
much  more  wearj'  of  the  German  princes. 
Fritz  Brunner's  face,  in  truth,  was  typical 
of  Germany ;  it  was  a  medley  of  Israel- 
itisli  guile  and  of  simplicity,  of  stupidity 
and  courage,  of  that  knowledge  which 
begets  disgust,  and  that  experience  which 
stands  disarmed  before  the  merest  puer- 
ility. An  excessive  use  of  beer  and  of 
tobacco  had  left  their  traces  on  the  feat- 
ures ;  and  then  —  to  heighten  all  these 
antitheses — there  was  a  diabolical  sparkle 
in  the  fine  but  faded  azure  CN'es.  While 
dressed  with  all  the  elegance  of  the 
banker,  Fritz  Brunner  was  conspicuouslj' 
bald.  The  scanty  locks  that  penury  and 
dissipation  had  spared  clustered  in  bright 
red  curls  on  each  side  of  liis  head  ;  so  that 
when  the  days  of  his  financial  restoration 
dawned,  he  still  retained  the  privilege  of 
paying  the  barber.  His  face,  once  fresh 
and  handsome,  had  now  contracted  a 
certain  harshness  of  tone  which,  height- 
ened by  a  red  mustache  and  tawny  beard, 


gave  to  the  features  an  almost  sinister 
aspect.  In  Brunner's  strife  with  sorrow, 
his  pure  blue  eyes — those  eyes  in  which 
an  enraptured  mother  had  once  beheld 
a  divine  replica  of  her  own — had  lost  their 
pristine  clearness.  Now  this  premature 
philosopher,  this  young  old  man,  was  the 
work  of  a  step-mother. 

Here  begins  the  curious  history  of  a 
prodigal  son  of  Frankfort-on-Main,  the 
.strangest  and  the  most  extraordinary 
phenomenon  that  ever  presented  itself  in 
that  sage,  though  central,  city. 


VIII. 


PRODIGAL  SONS,    WHEN   THEY    HAIL   FROM 
FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN,  END    BY    BECOM- 
ING  BANKERS   AND  MILLIONAIRES. 

Mr.  Gideon  Brunner,  the  father  of 
our  Fritz,  was  one  of  those  celebrated 
innkeepers  of  Frankfort-on-Main,  wlio 
conspire  with  the  bankers  to  bleed,  ac- 
cording to  law,  the  purse  of  the  trav- 
eler. This  worthy  Calvinist  had  married 
a  converted  Jewess,  and  owed  the  ele- 
ments  of  his  fortune  to  her  marriage 
portion.  When  her  bo^'  Fiitz  was  twelve 
3'ears  old,  the  Jewess  died,  leaving  him 
to  the  guardianship  of  his  father,  and 
the  supervision  of  his  uncle,  a  furrier  at 
Leipsic,  and  head  partner  in  the  firm  of 
Virlaz  &  Co.  This  uncle,  who  was  by  no 
means  so  pliable  as  his  furs,  insisted  on 
Brunner  senior  placing  young  Fritz's 
fortune  —  which  consisted  of  a  pile  of 
marcs  banco — in  the  house  of  Al-Sart- 
child,  and  there  leaving  it. 

By  way  of  revenging  himself  for  this 
Israelitish  exigence,  Brunner  senior  mar- 
ried again,  under  the  pretext  that  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  manage  his  vast 
hotel  without  the  helping  hand  and  ej'e 
of  a  woman.  His  second  wife,  the 
daughter  of  another  innkeeper,  he  took 
to  be  a  pearl ;  little  did  he  know  the 
nature  of  an  only  daughter,  the  idol  of 
her  father  and  her  mother.  The  second 
Mrs.  Brunner  was  what  all  j'oung  Ger- 
man women  are,  when  they  happen  to 


68 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


be  frivolous  and  malicious.  She  dissi- 
pated her  fortune,  and  avenged  the  first 
Mrs.  Brunner,  by  making  lier  husband's 
home  the  most  miserable  of  all  homes 
within  the  territory  of  the  free  city  of 
Frankfort-on-Main,  whose  millionaires 
('tis  said)  are  going  to  pass  a  municipal 
law  to  compel  the  women  to  devote  their 
attentions  exclusively  to  houie  and  family-. 

Tliis  German  lady  loved  the  various 
kinds  of  vinegar,  to  which  the  Germans 
apply  the  general  term  Rhine  wine.  She 
loved  Parisian  knickknacks  for  the  toilet, 
and  had  a  passion  for  riding  and  for  dress. 
In  fact,  the  only  costly  things  she  did  not 
love  were — women. 

She  contracted  an  aversion  for  little 
Fritz,  and  would  have  driven  him  mad, 
if  that  young  product  of  Calvinism  and 
Judaism  had  not  had  Frankfort  for  his 
birthplace,  and  the  house  of  Virlaz,  of 
Leipsic,  as  his  guardian ;  but  Uncle 
Virlaz,  being  entirely  wrapped  up  in 
his  furs,  confined  his  vigilance  to  the 
marcs  banco ;  and  left  the  child  to  the 
tender  mei'cies  of  its  step-mother. 

This  hyena  was  all  the  more  infuriated 
against  the  cherub-child  of  the  beautiful 
Madame  Brunner,  inasmuch  as  she  her- 
self  remained  childless.  Actuated  \)y  a 
diabolical  motive,  this  criminal  German 
woman  launched  young  Fritz,  so  soon  as 
he  had  attained  his  majority,  into  the 
most  anti  -  Germanic  dissipations  ;  her 
hope  being  that  Englisli  horses,  Rhine 
vinegar,  and  Goethe's  "  Margarets " 
would  deal  the  finishing  blow  to  the 
child  of  the  Jewess  and  his  fortune ;  for 
Uncle  Virlaz  had  left  a  fine  inheritance 
for  his  little  Fritz  as  soon  as  he  should 
become  of  age.  But  if  the  gaming-tables 
of  the  German  Watei-s  and  the  friends  of 
Fritz's  German  Wines — among  which 
friends  we  must  include  Wilhelm  Schwab 
— managed  to  knock  down  the  Virlaz  capi- 
tal, the  youthful  prodigal  survived,  to 
serve — in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the 
Lord — as  an  awful  warning  to  youths  in 
the  city  of  Frankfort-on-Main ;  where 
every  family  used  his  name  as  a  scare- 
crow, to  confine  its  children,  prudent  and 
alarmed,  within  the  limits  of  its  iron 
strong-room,   lined    with    marcs    banco. 


Instead  of  dj'ing  in  the  prime  of  life, 
Fritz  Brunner  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
his  step-mother  inten-ed  in  one  of  those 
charming  cemeteries,  in  which  the  Ger- 
mans, under  the  pretense  of  showing  re- 
spect to  their  departed  friends,  abandon 
themselves  to  their  unbridled  passion  for 
horticulture. 

The  second  Mrs.  Brunner  having  pre- 
deceased her  parents,  Brunner  senior  had 
absolutely  nothing  to  show  for  all  the 
money  that  she  had  extracted  from  hLs 
strong-box,  and  all  the  troubles  she  had 
caused  him — troubles  so  heavj'^,  that  this 
innkeeper  with  the  constitution  of  a  Her- 
cules, was,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  as 
emaciated  as  if  he  had  been  attacked  bj' 
the  famous  poison  of  the  Borgia  s. 

To  miss  his  wife's  fortune  after  endur- 
ing his  wife  for  ten  j'ears,  tui'ned  this  inn- 
keeper into  a  second  ruin  of  Heidelberg, 
a  ruin  which  underwent  ('tis  true)  con- 
tinual rei)airs  from  the  rechnungs  of  the 
guests ;  just  as  the  ruins  of  Heidelberg 
are  repaired,  with  a  view  to  keeping  up 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  tourists,  who  come 
in  troops  to  see  these  ruins  that  are  so 
well  kept  up. 

The  old  man's  condition  was  as  much 
talked  about  at  Frankfort  as  a  bank- 
ruptcy would  have  been.  People  would 
point  at  Brunner  and  say,  "See  to  wliat 
a  state  a  bad  wife,  whose  fortune  one 
does  not  come  in  for,  and  a  son  educated 
in  the  French  style,  may  reduce  a  man." 

In  Italy  and  Germany  every  misfortune 
that  happens  is  imijuted  to  the  French ; 
thej'  are  the  target  for  every  bullet; 
"but  the  God  pursuing  his  career  "  (etc., 
etc.,  as  in  the  ode  of  Lefranc  de  Pompig- 
nan). 

The  effects  of  the  anger  of  the  landlord 
of  the  Grand  Hotel  of  Holland  did  not 
exhaust  themselves  upon  the  tourists, 
whose  bills  {rechnungs)  bore  the  imprint 
of  his  grievances.  When  his  son  was 
completelj'-  ruined,  Gideon,  regarding  him 
as  the  indirect  cause  of  all  his  father's 
misfortunes,  refused  him  bread  and 
water,  salt,  fire,  house-room,  and — the 
pipe  !  (the  refusal  of  which,  by  a  father, 
who  is  an  innkeeper  and  a  German,  is  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  paternal  malediction). 


COUSIN    PONS. 


69 


The  authorities  of  the  district,  not  tak- 
ing into  consideration  the  original  short- 
comings of  the  father,  and  looking  upon 
him  as  one  of  the  most  unfortunate  of  men 
in  Frankfort-on-Main,  espoused  his  cause, 
expelled  Fritz  from  the  territorj^  of  that 
free  city,  and  declared  against  him,  a 
German  feud. 

The  law  is  neither  more  humane,  nor 
wiser,  at  Frankfort,  than  it  is  elsewhere 
— although  that  city  is  the  seat  of  the 
Germanic  Diet.  How  seldom  does  a  judge 
ascend  the  stream  of  crime  and  misery',  in 
order  to  discover  who  held  the  urn  whence 
the  first  trickling  tributary  flowed !  If 
Brunner  forgot  his  son,  his  son's  friends 
followed  the  example  of  Brunner.  Whence 
sprung  this  German  with  the  deeply  tragic 
face  who  had  landed  in  elegant  Paris  amid 
all  the  hustle  of  a  first  representation,  and 
was  there,  in  a  stage-box  alone  ?  Such 
was  the  question  which  the  joui'nalists, 
the  lions,  and  sundry  Parisian  ladies 
among  the  audience,  were  putting  to 
themselves.  Ah !  if  the  story  that  has 
just  been  told  could  have  been  acted  in 
front  of  the  prompter's  box,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  that  assembly,  it  would  have  made 
a  far  finer  drama  than  the  fairj'  piece, 
"La  Fiancee  du  Diable";  although  it 
would  have  been  (not  the  first  but)  the 
two  hundred  thousandth  representation 
of  the  sublime  parable  that  was  acted  in 
Mesopotamia,  three  thousand  years  before 
the  birth  of  Christ. 

When  Fritz  was  expelled  from  Frank- 
fort, he  went  on  foot  to  Strasbourg,  and 
there  encountered  something  that  the 
prodigal  sou  of  Scripture  did  not  encoun- 
ter in  the  land  of  Holy  Writ ;  something 
that  reveals  the  superioritj'  of  Alsace, 
prolific  in  generous  hearts,  to  prove  to 
Germany  the  beauty  of  the  combination 
of  French  wit  and  German  solidity.  Wil- 
helm  Schwab,  who  had  just  succeeded  to 
the  fortune  of  his  father  and  mother,  now 
master  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  re- 
ceived Fritz  with  open  arms,  open  heart, 
open  house,  and  open  purse.  To  attempt 
to  describe  the  sensations  of  Fritz  at  the 
moment  when,  dustj',  miserable,  quasi- 
leprous  as  he  was,  he  found,  on  the  other 
bank  of  the  Rhine,   a  real,  substantial 


twenty-franc  piece  in  the  hand  of  a  gen- 
uine friend,  would  be  to  undertake  an  ode 
such  as  Pindar  only  could  launch  into  the 
world — in  Greek — to  fan  the  embers  of 
expiring  fi'iendship.  Add  the  names  of 
Fritz  and  Wilhelm  to  those  of  Damon 
and  Pythias,  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  of 
Pylades  and  Orestes,  of  Dubi'euil  and 
Pmeja,  of  Schmucke  and  Pons,  and  to 
all  the  fancy  names  we  give  to  the  two 
friends  of  the  Mouomotapa  (for  La  Fon- 
taine, like  a  man  of  genius,  as  he  was, 
has  placed  before  us  semblances  of  men 
without  substance  and  without  reality). 
You  may  add  tliese  two  new  names  to 
our  roU  of  celebrities,  with  all  the  more 
propriety,  in  that  Wilhelm  devoured  his 
heritage  in  company  with  Fritz,  just  as 
Fritz  had  drunk  his  in  company  with 
Wilhelm — smoking  at  the  same  time  (be 
it  always  understood)  every  species  of 
tobacco  that  is  grown. 

Improbable  as  it  may  seem,  the  two 
friends  consumed  this  heritage  in  the 
breweries  of  Strasbourg,  after  the  most 
foolish  and  most  \Tdgar' fashion  possible 
— in  the  society  of  the  ballet-girls  of  the 
Strasbourg  Theater,  and  of  certain  Alsa- 
tian damsels,  who  had  worn  their  little 
brooms  to  the  \evy  stump. 

At  the  same  time,  not  a  morning 
dawned  but  they  would  say  to  each 
other  :  "  This  may  be  all  very  well;  but 
we  must  pull  up,  come  to  some  resolution, 
and  do  something  with  the  money  that  is 
left."  "  Oh  !  just  this  one  day,"  Fritz 
would  remark,  "  but  to-morrow."  '•  Oh, 
yes,  to-morrow  !" 

In  the  life  of  the  debauchee,  To-day  is 
a  tremendous  coxcomb ;  To-morrow  is  a 
great  coward,  scared  by  the  courage  of 
his  predecessor ;  To-day  is  the  swash- 
buckler of  the  old  comedy  ;  To-morrow 
is  the  phantom  of  our  existing  panto- 
mimes. When  the  two  friends  had  come 
to  their  last  thousand-franc  note  they 
booked  places  at  the  Messageries  which 
are  called  royal,  and  so  reached  Paris, 
where  they  found  quarters  at  the  Hotel 
du  Rhin  in  the  Rue  du  Mail,  which  was 
kept  by  one  Graff,  formerly  head-waiter 
to  Gideon  Brunner.  On  the  strength  of 
Graff's  recommendation,  Keller  Brothers 


70 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


engag-ed  Fritz  as  one  of  their  clerks,  at  a 
salary  of  six  hundred  francs  a  year. 

Now  Graff,  the  landlord  of  the  Hotel 
du  Rhin,  is  a  brother  of  Graff,  the  cele- 
brated tailor.  The  tailor  took  Wilhelm 
into  his  service  as  bookkeeper.  Graff, 
the  hotel-keeper,  deemed  these  two  posts 
not  nearly  g'ood  enoug-h  for  the  two 
prodig-al  sons,  when  he  called  to  mind 
his  own  apprenticeship  at  the  Hotel  du 
Hollande. 

These  two  facts — the  recognition  of  a 
poor  friend  by  a  rich  one,  and  the  interest 
taken  by  a  German  innkeeper  in  a  fel- 
low-countryman without  a  farthing,  may 
lead  some  persons  to  suppose  that  this 
history  is  a  romance  ;  but,  in  these  days 
truth  is  all  the  more  like  fiction,  in  that 
fiction  takes  such  incredible  pains  to  re- 
semble truth. 

Fritz,  clerk  at  a  salary  of  six  hundred 
francs,  and  Wilhelm,  bookkeeper  at  the 
same  remuneration,  found  it  very  difficult 
to  exist  in  a  city  so  seductive  as  Paris;  so, 
in  1837,  after  they  had  been  in  Paris  two 
3'ears,  Wilhelm,  who  had  g'reat  talent  as 
a  flutist,  and  was  desirous  of  sometimes 
having'  a  little  butter  on  his  bread,  joined 
the  orchestra  over  which  Pons  presided. 
As  for  Fritz,  he  could  supplement  his  in- 
come only  by  the  exercise  of  that  financial 
capacity  with  which,  as  a  scion  of  the 
Virlaz  stem,  he  was  endowed.  In  spite 
of  his  application — perhaps  on  account  of 
his  talents — it  was  not  till  1843  that  the 
Franlifortian  succeeded  in  getting-  two 
thousand  francs  a  year.  Penurj',  that  di- 
vine step-mother,  did  for  these  two  young- 
men  what  their  own  mothers  had  been 
unable  to  do  for  them  ;  she  taught  them 
economy,  Icnowledge  of  the  world,  knowl- 
edge of  life ;  she  gave  them  that  grand, 
that  potent  education  of  chastisement, 
which  she  imparts  to  all  men  destined  to 
be  great ;  all  of  whom  are  unhappy  in 
their  youth. 

Fritz  and  Wilhelm,  being  but  ordinary 
men,  did  not  lay  to  heart  all  the  lessons 
of  Penury' ;  they  did  their  best  to  keep 
out  of  the  way  of  her  blows ;  they  found 
her  bosom  flinty  and  her  arms  lean,  nor 
could  they  extract  from  those  arms  the 
good  fairy  Urgela  who  yields  to  the  ca- 


resses of  men  of  g-enius.  But  they  did 
learn  the  full  value  of  Fortune,  and  re- 
solved to  clip  her  wings,  if  ever  sho 
returned  to  their  door. 

"  Well !  Father  Schmucke,  I  can  ex- 
plain the  whole  matter  in  one  word,"  pur- 
sued William  (who  had  told  the  whole  of 
this  story  to  the  pianist,  in  German). 
"  Brunncr  senior  is  dead.  He  was,  un- 
avowedly  to  his  son  and  to  Monsieur 
Graff  (with  whom  we  lodge),  one  of  the 
original  promoters  of  the  Baden  railways, 
out  of  which  he  made  immense  profits. 
He  leaves  a  fortune  of  £160,000.  This  is 
the  last  night  that  I  shall  play  the  flute. 
But  for  its  being-  a  first  night  I  should 
have  left  some  days  ago,  but  I  did  not 
wish  my  part  in  the  music  to  be  want- 
ing." 

"Dat  is  right,  young-  man,"  said 
Schmucke.  "But  whom  are  you  going 
to  marry  ?  " 

"  The  daughter  of  Monsieur  Graff,  our 
host,  the  landlord  of  the  Hotel  du  Rhin. 
I  have  loved  Mademoiselle  Emilie  these 
seven  years;  she  has  read  so  many  im- 
moral novels  that  she  has  refused  every 
offer  for  my  sake,  without  knowing  what 
might  be  the  upshot.  The  young  lady 
will  be  very  rich,  for  she  is  sole  heiress  of 
the  Graffs,  who  are  tailors,  in  the  Rue 
de  Richelieu.  Fritz  is  going  to  give  me 
five  times  what  we  squandered  together 
at  Strasbourg  —  five  hundred  thousand 
francs  !  A  million  francs  he  devotes  to 
the  establishment  of  a  bank,  to  which 
Monsieur  Graff,  the  tailor,  contributes  five 
hundred  thousand  francs ;  the  father  of 
my  future  wife  permits  me  to  invest  her 
portion  (which  amounts  to  two  hundred 
and  fift^^  thousand  francs)  in  the  same 
establishment,  and  wiU  invest  an  equal 
sum  on  his  own  account.  Thus  the  house 
of  Brunner,  Schwab  &  Co.  will  have  a 
capital  of  two  million  five  hundred  thou- 
sand francs.  Fritz  has  just  bought  shares 
in  the  Bank  of  France  to  the  amount  of 
fifteen  hundred  thousand  francs,  to  guar- 
antee our  account  there.  But  that  is  not 
the  whole  of  Fritz's  fortune;  there  are, 
besides,  some  houses  at  Frankfort,  which 
belonged  to  his  father,  and  are  reckoned 
to  be  worth  a  million  francs.    He    has 


COUSIN    PONS. 


already  let  the  Grand  Hotel  du  Hollande 
to  a  cousin  of  the  Graffs." 

"  You  look  very  sadly  at  j'our  friend," 
replied  Schmucke,  who  had  listened  to 
Wilhelm  attentively' ;  "  are  j-ou  envious 
of  him  ?  " 

"I  am, not  envious;  but  I  am  jealous 
for  Fritz's  happiness,"  said  Wilhelm. 
"  Is  that  the  face  of  a  man  who  is  happy  ? 
I  dread  Paris  on  his  account.  I  wish  he 
would  do  as  I  am  doing'.  The  old  Adam 
may  awake  in  him  again.  Of  our  two 
heads,  'tis  not  his  that  has  acquired  the 
greater  share  of  ballast.  That  toilet, 
that  eyeglass,  all  that  sort  of  things 
makes  me  uneasy;  he  has  looked  at  noth- 
ing in  the  theater,  except  the  lorettes. 
Ah  !  if  you  only  knew  how  difficult  it  is 
to  persuade  Fritz  to  marry  !  He  has  a 
horror  of  that  which  in  France  is  termed 
'  faire  la  cour.'  We  shall  have  to 
launch  him  into  married  life,  as — in  En- 
gland— they  launch  a  man  into  eternity, 
that  is  to  say — with  a  halter  round  his 
neck." 

Amid  the  tumult  that  marks  the  con- 
clusion of  a  first  representation  "  the 
flute  "  gave  the  invitation  to  his  con- 
ductor, and  Pons  accepted  it  with  glee. 
For  the  first  time  in  three  months, 
Sclimucke  saw  a  smile  on  the  face  of  his 
frieud.  He  conducted  Pons  back  to  the 
Rue  de  Normandie  in  silence ;  for  by  that 
gleam  of  joy  he  recognized  the  intensitj' 
of  the  malady  from  which  his  friend  was 
suffering.  That  a  man  so  truly  noble,  so 
disinterested  as  Pons,  a  man  of  such  ele- 
vated sentiments,  should  have  such  weak- 
nesses was  an  inexplicable  puzzle  to  the 
stoical  Schmucke ;  terribly  sad  he  grew, 
for  he  felt  that — in  the  interests  of  Pons's 
happiness  —  he  ought  to  renounce  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  his  "  goot  Bo7is  "  sit- 
ting opposite  to  him  at  the  dinner-table 
every  day  ;  and  Schmucke  did  not  know 
whether  he  could  bear  to  make  so  great 
a  sacrifice.     This  notion  drove  hiui  mad. 

The  proud  silence  maintained  by  Pons, 
stationed  on  the  Mount  Aventine  of  the 
Rue  de  Normandie,  had,  necessarily,  at- 
tracted the  notice  of  Madame  Camusot ; 
but  once  freed  from  her  parasite,  she 
troubled    herself    but    little  about    him. 


She,  in  common  with  her  "  charming 
daughter,"  fancied  that  her  cousin  had 
fathomed  the  trick  of  her  little  Lili ; 
but  with  the  president  things  were  very 
different. 

President  Camusot  de  JIarville,  a  short, 
stout  little  man  who,  since  his  promotion, 
had  grown  solemn,  was  an  admirer  of 
Cicero,  and  preferred  the  Opera  Comique 
to  the  Italian  Opera;  compared  actor 
with  actor ;  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  ruck ;  repeated,  as  his  own,  all  the 
articles  in  the  ministerial  journal ;  and,  in 
giving  his  decisions,  paraphrased  the  ideas 
of  the  councilor  who  preceded  him.  This 
magistrate,  the  leading  features  of  whose 
character  were  sufficiently  well  known, 
and  who  was  forced  by  his  position  to 
take  a  serious  view  of  every  subject,  had 
a  particular  regard  for  family  ties.  Like 
most  husbands  who  are  entirely  governed 
by  their  wives,  the  president  affected,  in 
minor  matters,  an  independence  which  his 
wife  did  not  infringe. 

During  a  whole  month  he  was  contented 
with  the  commonplace  reasons  assigned 
by  his  wife  for  Pons's  disappearance  ;  but 
at  length  he  began  to  think  it  strange 
that  the  old  musician — a  friend  of  forty 
years'  standing  —  had  discontinued  his 
visits,  immediately  after  making  so  con- 
siderable a  present  as  the  fan  of  Madame 
de  Pompadour.  At  the  Tuileries,  where 
this  fan,  which  Count  Popinot  had  recog- 
nized as  a  masterpiece,  was  handed  round, 
it  had  procured  for  Madame  Camusot 
sundry  compliments  extremely  gratifying 
to  her  vanity.  The  beauties  of  its  ten 
ivory  branches,  each  of  which  was  carved 
with  inimitable  delicacy,  were  pointed  out 
to  her  in  detail.  At  Count  Popinot's  a 
certain  Russian  lady — the  Russians  al- 
ways fancy  themselves  in  Russia — offered 
Madame  Camusot  six  thousand  francs  for 
tliis  extraordinary  fan  ;  she  was  amused 
at  seeiug  it  in  such  hands,  for  it  was  un- 
doubtedl3'  fit  for  a  duchess. 

"  One  cannot  deny  our  poor  cousin  the 
credit  of  thoroughly  understanding  these 
little  bits  of  trumpery,"  quoth  Cecile  to 
her  father  the  morning  after  the  Russian 
princess's  offer. 

"Little  hits  of  trumpery!"  exclaimed 


72 


THE    HUMAX    COMEDY. 


the  president ;  "why,  the  State  is  about 
to  give  three  hundred  thousand  francs  for 
the  collection  of  the  late  Monsieur  Con- 
seiller  Dusommerard,  and  to  contribute, 
in  conjunction  with  the  city  of  Paris,  half 
a  million  of  francs  toward  the  ijurchasing 
and  repairing  of  the  Hotel  Cluny,  in  order 
to  house  '  these  little  hits  of  trumpery .' " 

'"These  little  bits  of  trumpery,'  my 
dear  child,  are  often  the  only  traces  that 
remain  to  us  of  civilizations  that  have 
perished.  An  Etruscan  vase,  a  necklace 
(which  are  worth,  one,  fortj^  thousand  ; 
the  other,  fifty  thousand  francs)  are  '  lit- 
tle bits  of  trumpery'  that  reveal  to  us 
the  perfection  of  the  ai'ts  at  the  time  of 
the  siege  of  Troy,  while  proving  to  us  that 
the  Etruscans  were  Trojans  who  had  taken 
refuge  in  Italy." 

Such  Avas  the  style  of  the  stout  little 
president's  wit ;  he  assailed  his  wife  and 
daughter  with  clumsy  irony. 

"  The  combination  of  acquirements 
which  '  these  little  bits  of  trumpery '  de- 
mand is  a  science  which  is  called  Archte- 
ology .  Now,  Archasol  ogy  emb  races  a  rchi- 
tecture,  sculpture,  painting,  the  art  of 
working  in  the  precious  metals,  the  ce- 
ramic art,  the  ai-t  of  cabinet-making 
(quite  a  modern  art),  lace,  tapestry — in 
short,  evevj  product  of  human  labor." 

"Cousin  Pons  is  quite  a  savmit  then  ?" 
said  Cecile. 

"  Ah  !  by  the  way,  that  reminds  me ; 
why  don't  we  ever  see  him  now  ? "  in- 
quired the  president,  with  the  air  of  a 
man  under  the  influence  of  an  emotion, 
produced  by  a  thousand  forgotten  im- 
pressions, which  suddenly  coalesce,  and — 
to  use  a  term  common  among  sportsmen 
— font  balle. 

'•  Oh  !  he  must  be  huffed  about  some 
trifle  or  other,"  replied  Madame  Camu- 
sot.  "  Perhaps  I  have  not  shown  myself 
sufficiently  appreciative  of  the  gift  of 
this  fan ;  I  am,  as  you  know,  ver^'  igno- 
rant—" 

"  You  !  one  of  Servin's  most  accom- 
plished pupils  !  You  !  not  know  Wat- 
teau  !  "  interrupted  the  president. 

"  I  know  David,  Gerard,  Gros  ;  and 
Girodet  and  Guerin  and  Monsieur  de  For- 
bin  and  Turpin  de  Crisse — " 


"You  ought  to  have — " 

"What  ought  I  to  have  done,  mon- 
sieur ?  "  asked  the  ladj-,  looking  at  her 
husband  with  a  Queen  of  Sheba  air. 

"Known  what  Watteau  is,  my  dear; 
he  is  very  much  the  fashion,"  resumed 
the  president,  with  a  humilitj-  which 
showed  how  great  were  his  obligations 
to  his  wife. 

This  conversation  occurred  some  days 
before  the  first  representation  of  "  The 
Fiancee  du  Diable,"  when  all  the  mem- 
bei's  of  the  band  were  struck  by  Pons's 
sickly  appearance.  But,  in  the  interim, 
those  persons  who  were  accustomed  to 
see  Pons  at  their  tables,  and  to  emploj'- 
him  as  a  messenger,  had  been  making- 
inquiries  ;  and  there  had  arisen,  in  the 
circle  in  which  the  old  man's  orbit  lay,  a 
feeling  of  uneasiness  which  was  increased 
by  the  fact  that  several  persons  had  seen 
him  at  his  post  in  the  theater.  In  spite 
of  the  pains  taken  by  Pons  to  avoid  his 
former  acquaintances  when  he  came 
across  them  in  his  walks,  he  one  day 
found  himself  face  to  face  with  the  quon- 
dam minister,  Count  Popinot,  at  the  shop 
of  Monistrol,  one  of  those  famous  and 
audacious  dealers  of  the  new  Boulevard 
Beaumarchais,  whom  Pons  had  once  men- 
tioned to  Madame  Camusot,  and  whose 
wily  enthusiasm  from  da3'  to  day  raises 
the  price  of  curiosities ;  which  (they  say) 
are  becoming  so  scarce  that  it  is  now 
impossible  to  find  any. 

"My  dear  Pons,  why  do  we  never  see 
you  now  ?  You  have  quite  forsaken  us  ; 
and  Madame  Popinot  does  not  know  what 
to  make  of  your  desertion  of  us." 

"  There  is  a  certain  house,  Monsieur  le 
Comte,"  replied  poor  Pons — "the  house 
of  a  relative — in  which  I  have  been  made 
to  understand  that  a  man  of  mj'  years  is 
an  incumbrance  to  society.  I  Avas  never 
received  with  any  great  show  of  polite- 
ness ;  but,  at  all  events,  up  to  that  time 
I  had  never  been  actually  insulted.  I 
never  asked  any  one  for  a  farthing,"  he 
added,  with  all  an  artist's  piide.  "  In 
return  for  certain  attentions,  I  frequently 
made  myself  useful  to  those  from  whom 
I  received  them ;  but  it  would  seem  that 
I  was  laboring  under  a  delusion ;  that  I 


COUSIN    PONS. 


was  liable  to  unlimited  tax  and  toll,  in 
return  for  the  honor  which  my  friends — 
ray  relatives — conferred  upon  me,  by  ad- 
mitting- me  to  their  tables.  Well !  I  have 
resigned  mj^  office  of  parasite.  I  find 
every  day  in  m3''  own  home  that  which  no 
table  could  offer  me — a  g-enuine  friend  !  " 

These  words,  imbued  as  they  were  with 
all  that  bitterness  which  the  old  artist 
was  still  capable  of  infusing-  into  them  by 
the  aid  of  tone  and  gesture,  made  so  deep 
an  impression  on  the  peer  that  he  took  the 
worthy  musician  aside  and  said  to  him : 

"  Come  now,  my  old  friend,  what  has 
happened  to  you  ?  Can  you  not  impart 
to  me  in  confidence  what  it  is  that  has 
wounded  you  ?  You  will  allow  me  to 
point  out  to  you  that  at  my  house  you 
have  never  been  treated  otherwise  than 
with  respect." 

"You  are  the  onlj'  exception  that  I 
make,"  said  the  worthy  man,  "  and,  be- 
sides, you  are  a  grreat  nobleman,  a  states- 
man ;  the  demands  on  your  time  and  at- 
tention would,  if  need  were,  have  furnished 
an  excuse  for  ever3-thing." 

Yielding  to  the  influence  of  the  diplo- 
matic tact  acquired  by  Popinot  in  the 
management  of  men  and  in  the  conduct 
of  business.  Pons  was  at  length  induced 
to  recount  the  wrong-s  that  he  had  suffered 
in  the  house  of  the  President  de  Marville ; 
and  Popinot  so  heartily  espoused  the  vic- 
tim's cause  that,  on  reaching  home,  he 
immediately  mentioned  the  matter  to 
Madame  Popinot.  That  worthy  and  ex- 
cellent woman  expostulated  with  Madame 
de  Marville  the  next  time  that  the  two 
ladies  met ;  and  the  ex-minister,  on  his 
part,  having  made  some  observations  on 
the  subject  to  the  president,  a  family  ex- 
planation took  place  at  the  house  of  the 
Camusots  de  Marville.  Now,  although 
Camusot  was  not  entirely  master  in  his 
own  house,  neither  his  wife  nor  his  daugh- 
ter could  deny  the  justice  of  a  remon- 
strance that  had  so  solid  a  foundation 
both  of  law  and  fact ;  so  they  kissed  the 
rod  and  blamed  the  servants.  The  serv- 
ants having  been  summoned  and  censured, 
found  grace  onlj'  by  making- a  clean  breast 
of  the  whole  matter  ;  thus  pi'oving  to  the 
president  how  entirely  justified    Cousin 


Pons  was  in  remaining  at  home.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  president  acted 
as  all  men  under  petticoat-government 
would  have  acted  ;  he  displayed  his  dig- 
nity as  a  husband  and  a  judge,  by  an- 
nouncing to  his  servants  that  they  would 
be  dismissed  (and  thus  lose  all  the  advan- 
tages that  might  accrue  to  them  from 
their  long  stay  in  his  service)  unless,  from 
that  time  forth,  his  cousin  Pons  and  all 
who  did  him  (the  president)  the  honor  to 
visit  at  his  house,  were  treated  as  he  him- 
self was  treated,  as  he  himself  was  treated 
— an  expression  that  drew  a  smile  from 
Madeleine. 

"  Indeed,  you  have  but  one  chance  of 
escape,"  said  the  president;  "you  must 
disarm  my  cousin  by  apologizing  to  him. 
Go  and  tell  him  that  your  remaining  here 
depends  entirely  on  him  ;  for  I  shall  send 
you  all  away,  unless  he  forgives  you." 


IX. 


PONS   TAKES   MADAME   LA   PRESIDENTE 

A   WORK   OF  ART  A   LITTLE    MORE 

PRECIOUS  EVEN  THAN  A  PAN. 

The  next  day  the  president  set  off  be- 
times to  pay  a  visit  to  his  cousin  before 
the  sitting  of  the  court.  The  appearance 
of  Monsieur  le  President  de  Marville, 
heralded  by  Madame  Cibot,  was  quite 
an  event.  Pons,  who  never,  in  the 
whole  course  of  his  life,  had  received  the 
honor  of  a  visit  from  the  president,  felt 
that  reparation  was  at  hand. 

"My  dear  cousin,"  said  the  president, 
after  the  customary  compliments  had 
been  interchanged,  "I  have  at  last  dis- 
covered the  cause  of  your  secession. 
Your  conduct  increased — if  that  be  pos- 
sible— the  esteem  in  which  I  hold  you. 
Now  I  will  say  but  one  word  on  this 
point :  ray  servants  are  all  under  notice 
to  quit ;  ray  wife  and  daughter  are  in 
despair ;  they  want  to  see  you,  and  offer 
you  an  explanation.  I  can  assure  you 
that  throughout  the  whole  of  this  affair 
there  has  been  one  innocent  person,  and 
that  person  is  a  certain  cldci'ly  judge  you 
wot  of  ;  don't  punish  me  then  for  the  es- 


74 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY, 


capade  of  a  giddy  little  girl  who  wanted 
to  dine  with  the  Popinots  ;  especially'  see- 
ing- that  I  am  come  to  sue  for  peace,  with 
an  acknowledgment  that  we  —  and  we 
alone — are  in  the  wrong.  After  all,  a 
friendship  of  thirty-six  years'  standing 
— even  supposing  that  it  has  received 
a  shock — is  not  without  its  rights.  Come 
now,  sign  the  treaty  of  peace  hy  dining 
with  us  this  evening." 

Hereupon  Pons  contrived  to  get  en- 
tangled in  a  diffuse  reply,  and  wound  up 
hj'  announcing  that  he  was  engaged  to  be 
present  that  evening  at  the  troth-partj' 
of  one  of  the  performers  in  his  orchestra, 
who  was  flinging  his  flute  to  limbo  in  order 
to  become  a  banker. 

"Well,  then,  to-morrow." 

"  My  cousin,  Madame  la  Comtesse  Popi- 
not  has  sent  me  an  invitation  for  to- 
morrow, couched  in  the  most  flattering 
terms — " 

'•Then  the  day  after  to-morrow,"  per- 
sisted the  president. 

"  The  dduy  after  to-morrow,  my  first 
flute's  partner — a  German — a  Monsieur 
Brunner — returns  the  betrothed  the  civil- 
ity that  he  received  from  them  to-day." 

"  Your  amiability'  affords  an  ample  ex- 
planation of  the  zeal  with  which  people 
compete  for  the  pleasure  of  your  com- 
pany-," said  the  president.  Then,  after 
a  moment's  pause,  he  added  :  '•'  Well, 
then,  let  it  be  next  Sunday,  se'unight, 
as  we  saj'  at  the  palace." 

"  Why,  on  that  day  we  are  going  to 
dine  with  a  Monsieur  Graff,  the  father- 
in-law  of  the  flutist — " 

"Well,  be  it  Saturday  then;  between 
that  time  and  this  you  will  find  time  to 
reassure  a  little  girl,  who  has  already 
been  crying  over  her  fault.  All  that 
even  God  demands  is  penitence ;  will  you 
be  more  exacting  with  poor  little  Cecile 
than  the  Omnipotent  Himself  ?  " 

Pons,  thus  assailed  at  his  weakest 
points,  took  refuge  in  phrases  that  were 
moi'e  than  polite,  and  escorted  the  presi- 
dent to  the  head  of  the  stairs.  An  hour 
later  the  president's  servants  found  their 
way  in  a  body  to  Pons's  lodgings.  As 
the  manner  of  servants  is,  they  cringed, 
they  cajoled,  they  even  cried  !    As  for 


Madeleine,  she  led  Monsieur  Pons  aside, 
and  throwing  herself  resolutely  at  his 
feet:  " 'Twas  I,  monsieur,"  said  she, 
"  'twas  I  who  did  it  all ;  and  monsieur 
knows  full  well  that  I  love  him,"  she 
added,  bursting  into  a  flood  of  teai's. 
"  It  is  to  the  revengeful  feelings  boiling 
within  me  that  monsieur  must  attribute 
all  this  unhapijy  business.  We  shall  lose 
our  annuities  ! — monsieur,  I  was  mad, 
and  I  should  not  like  my  fellow-servants 
to  suffer  for  my  madness.  I  see  noV 
quite  plainly  that  fate  did  not  intend  me 
for  monsieur's  wife.  I  have  argued  the 
matter  with  myself ;  I  own  I  have  looked 
too  high,  but,  monsieur,  I  love  yon  still. 
For  ten  years  vay  one  dream  of  happiness 
has  been  to  make  you  happy,  and  to  look 
after  all  that  you  have  here  !  Oh,  if  mon- 
sieur only  knew  how  much  I  love  him ! 
but  he  must  have  read  it  in  all  my  acts  of 
malice  :  if  I  were  to  die  to-morrow — what 
would  they  find  ?  A  will,  monsieur,  in 
j-our  favor ;  yes,  monsieur,  a  will  in  your 
favor — in  my  trunk,  under  my  jewels  !  " 
By  touching  this  chord  Madeleine  awak- 
ened in  the  bosom  of  the  old  bachelor  that 
feeling  of  gratified  vanity  to  which  the 
fact  of  having  inspired  a  passion,  even  in 
a  person  who  is  distasteful  to  us,  will  al- 
ways give  rise.  Having  generously  for- 
given Madeleine,  Pons  extended  his  for- 
giveness to  all  the  other  servants,  and 
told  them  that  he  would  speak  to  his 
cousin  Madame  Camusot,  in  order  to  save 
them  from  being  sent  away.  Thus  then, 
to  his  ineffable  delight.  Pons  found  himself 
restored  to  all  his  habitual  enjoyments, 
without  having  stooped  to  any  act  of 
meanness :  instead  of  his  going  to  the 
world,  the  world  had  come  to  him ;  his 
character,  therefore,  would  gain,  instead 
of  losing,  dignity.  But  when  he  came  to 
explain  his  triumph  to  his  friend  Schmucke, 
Pons  had  the  mortification  of  seeing  him 
look  sad  and  full  of  unuttered  doubts. 
Nevertheless,  at  sight  of  the  sudden 
change  that  had  taken  place  in  Pons's 
countenance,  the  worthy  German  acqui- 
esced in  the  immolation  of  the  pleasure 
which  he  had  derived  from  having  his 
friend  all  to  himself  for  nearly  four 
months. 


COUSIN    POXS. 


Moral  uialacUes  are  in  one  respect  far 
less  terrible  than  physical — they  are  in- 
stantaneously cured  by  the  g-ratification 
of  the  desii'e  from  whose  defeat  they 
spring:.  On  this  morning-  Pons  became 
cjuite  a  different  being ;  the  melancholy 
moribund  old  man  gave  place  to  the  self- 
contented  Pons  whom  we  saw  conveying 
the  fan  of  M;ul;ime  de  Pompadour  to  Mad- 
ame de  Marville.  Schmucke,  meanwhile, 
pondered  deeply  over  this  phenomenon, 
3-et  failed  to  comprehend  it ;  for  the  genu- 
ine stoic  will  never  understand  thecourte- 
sanry  of  the  Frenchman.  Now  Pons  was 
a  genuine  Frenchman  of  the  Empire,  in 
whom  the  gallantr\'  of  the  eigliteenth 
century  was  combined  with  the  devotion 
to  the  fair  sex  so  highl^^  extolled  in  the 
romances  "  Partant  pour  la  SjTie,"  etc., 
etc.,  etc.  Schmucke  buined  his  sorrows 
in  his  heart,  and  covered  them  with  the 
flowers  of  German  philosophy;  but  within 
eight  days  he  turned  quite  yellow,  and 
Madame  Cibot  had  to  resort  to  strategj' 
in  order  to  introduce  the  doctor  of  the 
district  to  Schmucke's  sick-room.  This 
doctor  feared  that  the  old  German  was 
suffering  from  an  icterus,  and  left  Mad- 
ame Cibot  staggered  by  that  learned  word 
which,  being  interpreted,  simply  means 
the  jaundice. 

And  now — for  the  first  time,  probably, 
in  the  course  of  their  acquaintance — the 
two  friends  were  about  to  dine  out  to- 
gether ;  though,  so  far  as  Schrauclce  was 
concerned,  this  dinner  was  merely  a  trip 
to  Germany.  In  fact  Johann  Graff,  the 
landlord  of  the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  and  his 
daughter  Emilie,  Wolfgang  Graff  the 
tailor,  and  his  wife,  Fritz  Brunner  and 
Wilhem  Schwab,  were  Germans  one  and 
all — Pons  and  the  notary  being  the  only 
French  people  admitted  to  the  banquet. 
The  tailor  and  his  spouse,  who  owned  a 
splendid  mansion  in  the  Rue  de  Riche- 
lieu between  the  Rue  Neuve-des-Petits- 
Champs  and  the  Rue  Villedo,  had  under- 
taken the  bringing-  up  of  their  niece, 
whose  father,  not  unreasonably,  enter- 
tained a  ver^'  strong  dislike  to  his  daugh- 
ter's coming  into  contact  with  the  heter- 
ogeneous crowd  that  haimts  a  hostehy. 
These  worthy  tailor  folks,  who  loved  the 


child  as  if  she  had  been  their  own,  gave 
up  the  ground-floor  of  their  abode  to  the 
j-ouug  couple.  'Twas  in  this  spot  also 
that  the  banking-house  of  Brunner, 
Schwab  &  Co.  was  to  have  its  headquar- 
ters. These  details  had  been  settled 
about  a  month  pre%iouslj' ;  for  that  was 
the  time  required  for  realizing  the  fortune 
of  Brunner,  the  author  of  all  this  felicity ; 
and  during  the  interval,  the  home  that 
was  to  receive  the  young  couple  had  been 
richly  redecorated  and  furnished  at  the 
expense  of  the  celebrated  tailor.  The 
wing  that  connected  the  old  mansion 
between  court  and  garden,  with  a  fine 
house  abutting  on  the  street,  had  been 
converted  into  bank-offices. 

As  the  two  friends  journeyed  from  the 
Rue  de  Normandie  to  the  Rue  Richelieu 
Pons  abstracted  from  the  absent-minded 
Schmucke  the  details  of  this  new  edition 
of  the  story  of  the  prodigal  son,  for  whom 
Death  had  killed  the  fatted — innkeeper. 
Pons,  under  the  influence  of  his  recent  rec- 
onciliation with  his  nearest  relatives,  was 
immediately'  fired  with  the  desire  to  unit* 
Fritz  Brunner  and  Cecile  Camusot  in  the 
bonds  of  wedlock.  As  chance  would  have 
it,  the  notarj'  of  the  brothers  Graff  was 
no  other  than  the  son-in-law  and  suc- 
cessor of  Cardot,  formerly  second  head- 
clerk  in  Cardot's  office,  and  a  person  with 
whom  Pons  frequently  dined. 

"What,  is  it  j'ou.  Monsieur  Berthier  ?  "* 
said  the  old  musician,  holding  out  his 
hand  to  his  ex-Amphitryon. 

"  And  pray  whj-  have  you  ceased  to  do 
us  the  honor  of  dining  with  us,  as  you 
formerly  did?"  inquired  the  notary.  "  My 
wife  was  anxious  about  you.  Then  we 
saw  you  at  the  first  representation  of 
'  The  Fiancee  du  Diable,'  and  our  anxiety 
was  converted  into  curiosity." 

"Old  men  are  sensitive,"  replied  the 
worthy  man.  "They  have  the  demerit 
of  being  just  a  centurj^  behind  the  age ; 
but  what  is  to  be  done  ?  It  is  quite  as 
much  as  they  can  do  to  represent  one 
epoch ;  they  cannot  belong  to  the  epoch 
in  which  they  die." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  the  notary,  with  a  know- 
ing look,  "one  hare  and  one  century  at 
a  time,  eh?  " 


76 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Oh,  by  the  way,  whj"  don't  you  find 
a  husband  for  m}'  cousin  Cecile  de  Mar- 
ville  ?  "  asked  the  wortliy  man,  tal<ing- 
the  young'  notary  into  a  corner  of  tlie 
room. 

"  Ahj  wliy  indeed  ?  "  replied  the  notary. 
"  In  this  age,  when  luxury  has  penetrated 
even  to  our  porters'  lodges,  young  men 
pause  before  uniting-  their  destiny  to  that 
of  a  daughter  of  a  president  of  the  Court 
Roj'al  of  Paris,  when  that  daughter's 
portion  is  only  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 
In  the  class  in  which  the  husband  of  Made- 
moiselle de  Marville  must  be  sought  for, 
you  cannot  find  a  woman  who  costs  her 
husband  only  three  thousand  francs  a 
year.  The  interest  on  such  a  portion, 
then,  will  barely  defray  the  annual  ex- 
penses of  the  lady's  toilet.  A  bachelor 
with  an  income  of  fifteen  or  twenty  thou- 
sand francs  lives  in  a  pretty  entresol ;  the 
world  does  not  expect  him  to  make  any 
display ;  he  may  do  with  a  single  servant ; 
he  can  devote  his  whole  income  to  his 
amusements;  the  only  decorum  he  need 
study,  he  can  buy — at  his  tailor's.  Ca- 
ressed by  all  far-seeing  mothers,  he  is  one 
of  the  kings  of  fashionable  Pai-is. 

"A  wife,  on  the  other  hand,  needs  an 
establishment ;  she  monopolizes  the  car- 
riage ;  if  she  goes  to  the  play  she  wants 
a  box,  whereas  the  bachelor  pays  for  a 
stall  only.  In  fact  the  wife  is  the  exclu- 
sive representative  of  the  fortune  which 
formerly  the  bachelor  represented  alone. 
Suppose  that  your  married  couple  have 
thirty  thousand  francs  a  year ;  as  things 
are  now,  the  rich  bachelor  deg:enerates 
into  a  poor  devil  who  has  to  count  the 
cost  of  a  trip  to  Chantilh'.  Are  there 
any  children  ?  then  the  parents  are  posi- 
tively poor.  Now  seeing-  that  Monsieur 
and  Madame  de  Marville  are  barely  flftj', 
the  expectatioyis  are  purely  reversionary 
for  fifteen  or  twenty  years ;  no  bachelor 
cares  to  carrj'  them  in  his  portfolio  so 
long  as  that ;  and  let  me  tell  you  that  a 
calculating  spirit  has  so  deeplj-^  corroded 
the  hearts  of  the  unsophisticated  young 
sparks  who  dance  the  polka  at  Mabillc 
with  lorettes,  that  all  marriageable  young- 
men  studj'  the  two  aspects  of  the  j^roblem 
without  needing  our  exposition  of  the  sub- 


ject. And  between  j'ou  and  me.  Made- 
moiselle de  Marville  leaves  the  hearts  of 
her  suitors  quite  calm  enoug-h  to  allow 
their  heads  to  work ;  and  the  result  is 
that  they  all  of  them  indulge  in  these 
anti-matrimonial  reflections.  If  any  young- 
fellow  in  possession  of  his  senses  and — an 
income  of  twenty  thousand  francs — foi^ms 
a  quiet  little  programme  of  marriage  in 
harmonj^with  his  ambitious  ideals,  Made- 
moiselle de  Marville  does  not  at  all  cor- 
respond to  it — " 

"  And  why  not  ?  "  asked  the  astonished 
musician. 

"Oh!"  replied  the  notary,  "in  these 
days  almost  every  bachelor,  though  he 
be  as  plain  as  you  and  I  are,  my  dear 
Pons,  has  the  impudence  to  expect  a  wife 
with  a  marriage  portion  of  six  hundred 
thousand  francs,  with  good  blood  in  her 
veins,  plenty  of  g-ood  looks,  wit  and  edu- 
cation— a  g:irl  without  a  flaw — in  short,  a 
paragon." 

"  Then  mj-  cousin  will  have  g-reat  diffi- 
culty in  finding  a  husband  ?  " 

"She  will  not  find  one  until  her  father 
and  mother  can  make  up  their  minds  to 
add  Marville  to  her  portion ;  had  fhej 
been  willing  to  do  that,  she  would  now 
be  Vicomtesse  Popinot — but  see,  here  is 
Monsieur  Brunner  ;  we  are  going  to  read 
the  part  nership  deed  of  the  house  of  Brun- 
ner &  Co.,  and  also  the  contract  of  mar- 
riage." 

When  the  persons  present  had  been 
introduced  to  one  another  and  the  cus- 
tomai'.y  compliments  interchanged.  Pons 
—who  had  been  requested  by  the  relatives 
of  the  parties  to  sig-n  the  contract  as  a 
witness — heard  the  deeds  read.  The 
party  adjourned  to  the  dining--room  at 
about  half-past  five.  The  dinner  was  one 
of  those  sumptuous  entertainments  which 
men  of  business  g-ive  when  they  fling- 
away  its  cares  for  a  season.  The  viands 
clearly  showed  that  Graff,  the  landlord  of 
the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  had  relations  with  the 
best  provision  dealers  in  Paris.  Never 
had  Pons  or  Schmucke  witnessed  such 
good  cheer.  There  were  dishes  on  the 
table  that  were  fit  to  ravish  the  mind — 
German  paste  of  unexampled  delicacy, 
smelts    incomparably    fried,    a    Geneva 


COUSIN    PONS. 


rt 


ferra  with  the  g'enuine  Genevese  sauce, 
and  then  there  was  a  sauce  for  plum-pud- 
ding: that  would  have  astounded  the  fa- 
mous London  physician  who  is  said  to  have 
invented  it.  The  company  did  not  leave 
the  dinner  table  until  ten  o'clock.  The 
quantity  of  Rhine  wines  and  of  French 
wines  consumed  would  have  astonished 
the  dandies ;  for  the  amount  of  fluids 
which  a  German  can  imbibe,  without  ex- 
hibiting a  single  trace  of  exhilaration, 
transcends  all  knowledge.  To  gain  any 
idea  of  it  one  must  dine  in  Germany  and 
behold  bottle  follow  bottle  (as  wave  suc- 
ceeds to  wave  on  some  lovely  Mediter- 
ranean strand),  disappear  just  as  if  the 
Germans  possessed  tlie  absorbent  powers 
of  sponge  and  sand.  But  this  process 
goes  on  harmoniously  unaccompanied  by 
French  noise  and  clatter :  the  talk  re- 
mains as  frigid  as  the  rhetoric  of  a 
money-lender;  the  faces  flush  after  the 
fashion  of  those  of  the  brides  whom  we 
see  in  the  frescos  of  Cornelius  or  Schnor, 
that  is  to  say  —  imperceptibly;  while 
tales  of  the  past  flow  from  the  lips  as 
slowly  as  the  smoke  curls  upward  from 
the  pipe. 

At  about  half  -  past  ten.  Pons  and 
Schmucke  were  seated  on  a  bench,  in  the 
garden,  with  the  quondam  flutist  between 
them.  They  were  discussing — with  a  very 
hazy  notion  of  what  they  were  talking 
about — their  respective  dispositions,  opin- 
ions, and  misfortunes.  In  the  midst  of 
this  hotch-potch  of  confidences,  Wilhelm 
mentioned  his  anxiety  to  get  Frit?  mar- 
ried, and  dilated  on  the  topic  with  vinous 
eloquence  and  force. 

"What  say  you  to  the  following  pro- 
gramme for  your  friend?"  whispered 
Pons  to  Wilhelm.  "A  charming  young 
lady,  full  of  good  sense ;  age  twentj'- 
four ;  family  of  the  highest  distinction  ; 
father  occupying  one  of  the  hig'hest  seats 
on  the  judicial  bench  ;  marriage  portion, 
one  hundred  thousand  francs ;  expecta- 
tions, a   million  francs." 

"  Stop  !  I  will  go  and  mention  it  to 
Fritz  at  once,"  replied  Wilhelm. 

Thereupon  the  two  musicians  beheld 
Brunner  and  his  friend  walking  round 
and  round   the  garden,  passing  and  re- 


passing, and  alternatel3'  .speaking  and 
listening.  Pons's  head  was  somewhat 
heavy — though  he  was  not  actually  drunk 
— but  his  intellect  was  as  active  as  its  cor- 
poreal envelope  was  inert.  Through  the 
diaphanous  haze  that  wine  produces,  he 
watched  Fritz  Brunner,  and  was  bent 
upon  tracing  in  his  features  indications 
of  a  desire  for  the  joys  of  married  life. 
Schwab  lost  no  time  in  bringing  his  friend 
and  partner  and  ijresenting  him  to  Mon- 
sieur Pons ;  whereupon  Fritz  Brunner 
thanked  the  old  gentleman  for  the  trouble 
he  deigned  to  take  in  the  matter.  A  con- 
versation then  ensued,  in  the  course  of 
which  the  two  old  bachelors.  Pons  and 
Schmucke,  lauded  marriage  to  the  skies 
and — with  the  utmost  possible  innocence 
— gave  vent  to  the  double  entendre,  that 
"  marriage  is  the  end  of  man."  When 
amid  the  service  of  ices,  tea,  punch  and 
cakes  in  the  future  apartments  of  the  be- 
trothed, the  worthy  tradesmen,  nearly  all 
of  whom  were  drunk,  learned  that  the 
sleeping  partner  in  the  banking-house  was 
about  to  follow  the  example  of  his  associ- 
ate, the  hilarity  of  the  evening  reached 
its  climax. 

It  was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when 
Pons  and  Schmucke  wended  their  way 
homeward  along  the  boulevards,  philoso- 
phizing, as  the^-  went,  on  the  musical  ar- 
rangement of  things  mundane  until  all 
trace  of  meaning  was  entirely  lost. 

On  the  morrow  Pons  repaired  to  the 
house  of  the  president — his  heai't  over- 
flowing with  the  profound  delight  that 
arises  from  returning  good  for  evil.  Poor 
dear  good  soul !  He  assuredly  attained 
to  the  sublime,  as  every  one  will  admit, 
since  we  live  in  an  age  when  the  Montyon 
prize  is  awarded  to  those  who  do  their 
duty  by  following  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel. 

"  Ah  !  They  will  be  under  deep  obliga- 
tions to  their  parasite,"  he  said  to  him- 
self as  he  reached  the  Rue  de  Choiseul. 

A  man  not  wrapped  up,  as  Pons  was, 
in  measureless  content,  a  man  of  the 
world,  a  suspicious  man  would,  on  re- 
tui-ning  to  that  house  under  such  circum- 
stances, have  observed  Madame  Camusot 
and  her  daughter.  But  the  poor  musician 


rs 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


was  a  child,  a  guileless  artist  whose  faith 
in  the  non-existence  of  moral  deformity 
equaled  his  devotion  to  jesthetical  beauty; 
and  accordingly  the  worthy  man  was  en- 
chanted with  the  blandishments  lavished 
on  him  by  Cecile  and  her  mother.  He 
who  for  the  last  twelve  years  had  looked 
on  while  vaudeville,  comedy  and  drama 
were  being  performed,  was  completely 
taken  in  by  the  grimaces  of  the  social 
comedy  :  long  familiarity  with  them  had, 
no  doubt,  dulled  his  perceptive  faculties 
in  that  regard.  The  covert  hatred  that 
Madame  Camusot  bore  her  husband's 
cousin  since  she  had  placed  herself  in  the 
wrong  may  be  easily  imagined  by  those 
who  frequent  Parisian  society  and  have 
grasped  the  aridity  —  both  mental  and 
physical  —  of  Madame  Camusot  (ardent 
only  in  the  pursuit  of  distinctions,  and 
rabid  with  virtue),  her  hollow  piety  and 
arrogance — the  arrogance  of  a  woman 
who  rules  the  roast  at  home.  It  will  be 
understood,  then,  that  all  the  demonstra- 
tive attentions  of  mother  and  daughter 
cloaked  a  formidable  thirst  for  vengeance 
— vengeance  that  was  obviously  only  de- 
ferred. For  the  first  time  in  her  life 
Amelie  was  in  the  wrong,  and  the  hus- 
band, whom  she  henpecked,  in  the  right: ; 
and — to  crown  all — she  was  compelled  to 
make  a  show  of  affection  toward  the  in- 
strument of  her  defeat !  Such  a  situation 
has  no  analogue  except  in  the  enmities 
that  smolder  for  long  years  in  the  sacred 
college  of  cardinals  or  in  the  chapters  of 
the  heads  of  religious  orders.  When,  at 
three  o'clock,  the  president  returned  from 
the  palace.  Pons  had  scarcely'  finished  his 
account  of  the  marvelous  incidents  that 
led  to  his  becoming  acquainted  with 
Frederick  Brunner,  of  the  dinner  of  yes- 
terday evening,  which  had  lasted  till 
morning,  and  of  all  that  concerned  the 
aforesaid  Frederick  Brunner.  Cecile,  in- 
deed, had  come  to  the  point  at  once  by 
asking  questions  as  to  Brunner's  style  of 
dress,  his  height,  his  figure,  the  color  of 
his  hair  and  ej'es;  and  then,  having  con- 
jectured that  Frederick  was  a  man  of 
distinguished  appearance,  she  proceeded 
to  express  her  admiration  of  his  generous 
disposition. 


"  To  give  five  hundred  thousand  francs 
to  his  companion  in  misfortune  !  Oh  ! 
mamma,  I  shall  have  a  carriage  and  a 
box  at  the  Italian  Opei-a." 

And  as  she  thought  of  the  realization 
of  all  her  mother's  ambition  on  her  be- 
half and  the  accomplishment  of  the  hopes 
that  she  had  given  up  hoping,  Cecile  be- 
came almost  pretty.  As  for  Madame 
Camusot,  she  contented  herself  with  ut- 
tering the  single  phrase  :  "  My  dear  little 
daughter,  j-ou  may  be  a  wife  within  a 
fortnight." 

All  mothers  who  have  daughters  of 
twenty  -  three,  address  them  as  little 
daughters  ! 

"  Still,  we  must '  have  time  to  make 
some  inquiries,"  said  the  president;  "I 
will  never  give  my  daughter  to  the  first 
man  who  happens  to  present  himself." 

"As  to  inquiries,"  replied  the  old  artist, 
"  the  deeds  were  prepared  and  signed  in 
Berthier's  office ;  and  as  to  the  young 
man  himself,  you  know,  my  dear  cousin, 
what  you  yourself  said  to  me.  Well, 
Brunner  is  over  forty ;  one  half  of  his 
head  is  hairless  ;  he  seeks,  in  family  life, 
a  haven  of  refuge  from  the  storms  of  fate; 
I  did  not  deter  him  from  entering  that 
haven  ;  every  man  to  his  taste." 

"  Then  there  is  all  the  more  reason  for 
our  seeing  Mr.  Frederick  Brunner,"  re- 
plied the  president.  "  I  don't  want  to 
bestow  my  daughter's  hand  on  some 
valetudinarian. ' ' 

"Well,  cousin,"  said  Pons,  still  ad- 
dressing Madame  Camusot,  "you  shall 
have  an  opportunity  of  deciding  as  to 
the  eligibility  of  my  suggested  suitor 
within  five  days'  time,  if  you  be  so 
minded ;  for,  viewing  the  subject  as  you 
do,  a  single  interview  will  enable  you  to 
arrive  at  a  conclusion." 

Here  Cecile  and  Madame  Camusot 
made  a  gesture  indicative  of  their  de- 
light. 

"Frederick,"  continued  Cousin  Pons, 
"  Frederick,  who  is  a  very  distinguished 
amateur,  has  begged  me  to  allow  him  to 
examine  my  little  collection.  You  have 
never  seen  my  pictures  and  curiosities  : 
come  and  see  them,"  added  Pons,  ad- 
dressing  his   two   relatives ;    "  you  can 


COUSIN    PONS. 


79 


visit  my  apartments  as  two  ladies  in- 
troduced by  my  friend  Schmucke ;  and 
you  will  form  the  acquaintance  of  the 
intended  without  being  compromised. 
Frederick  need  not  have  any  idea  as  to 
who  you  really  are." 

"  Admirable  !  "  exclaimed  the  president. 

The  attentions  showered  upon  the  for- 
merly despised  parasite  may  be  easily 
imagined.  On  this  day,  at  all  events,  the 
poor  man  toas  the  cousin  of  Madame  la 
Presidente.  Drowning  her  hatred  in  the 
flood  of  her  delight,  the  glad  mother 
found  looks  and  smiles  and  words  that 
threw  the  good  man  into  ecstasies ;  partly 
on  account  of  the  pleasure  which  he  was 
conferring,  and  partly  on  account  of  the 
future  of  which  he  caught  a  glimpse. 
Would  he  not,  in  the  houses  of  Brunner, 
Schwab,  and  Graff,  find  dinners  resem- 
bling that  which  signalized  the  signing  of 
the  marriage-contract?  He  saw  before 
him  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey 
— a  marvelous  succession  of  "  covered 
dishes,"  gastronomic  surprises,  and  ex- 
quisite wines. 

"  If  Cousin  Pons  is  the  cause  of  our 
carrying  through  such  a  piece  of  business 
as  this,"  said  the  president  to  his  wife, 
when  Pons  had  taken  his  departure,  "we 
ought  to  secure  him  an  income  equal  to 
his  salary  as  conductor." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Madame  de  Marville. 

It  was,  therefore,  agreed  and  decided 
that  in  case  the  intended  suitor  found  fa- 
vor in  Cecile's  c^-cs  she  should  undertake 
the  task  of  inducing  the  old  musician  to 
accept  this  mean  munificence.  The  presi- 
dent, who  was  anxious  to  have  authentic 
proof  of  the  fortune  of  Mr.  Frederick 
Brunner,  went  next  day  to  Berthier  the 
notary.  Berthier,  who  had  received  an 
Intimation  from  Madame  Camusot,  had 
sent  for  his  new  cUent,  Schwab,  the  ex- 
flute.  Dazzled  at  the  prospect  of  such  an 
alliance  for  his  friend — we  know  how 
great  is  the  respect  of  a  German  for 
social  distinctions  :  in  Germany  a  woman 
is  Mrs.  General,  Mrs.  Counselor,  Mrs. 
Advocate  So-and-so  —  dazzled  by  this 
prospect,  Schwab  was  as  complaisant  as 
a  collector  who  thinks  that  he  is  over- 
reaching a  dealer  in  curiosities. 


"  As  I  intend  to  settle  my  estate  of 
Marville  on  my  daughter,"  said  Cecile's 
father  to  Schwab,  "  I  should  above  all 
things  desire  that  the  marriage  should 
take  place  under  the  regime  dotal.  That 
being  so,  I  should  expect  Monsieur  Brun- 
ner to  invest  a  million  francs  in  land  in 
order  to  increase  the  estate  of  Marville, 
and  so  constitute  a  dotal  landed  property 
which  would  render  my  daughter  and  her 
children  independent  of  the  fortunes  of 
the  bank." 

Berthier  rubbed  his  chin  as  he  thought 
to  himself:  "The  pi-esident  knows  what 
he  is  about."  Schwab,  after  having  had 
the  effect  of  the  regime  dotal  explained 
to  him,  did  not  hesitate  to  answer  for  his 
friend.  The  dotal  clause  carried  out  a 
wish  which  he  had  heard  expressed  by 
Fritz,  namely,  that  he  could  discover 
some  plan  for  securing  himself  from  ever 
relapsing  into  his  former  penury. 

"  There  is  at  this  very  time  as  much  as 
twelve  hundred  thousand  francs'  worth  of 
farms  and  pasture  land  for  sale,"  said  the 
president. 

"  A  million  francs  invested  in  Bank  of 
France  shares  will  be  enough  to  guarantee 
our  account  there,"  said  Schwab.  "Fritz 
does  not  want  to  employ  more  than  two 
million  francs  in  business ;  he  will  do  what 
you  wish.  Monsieur  le  President." 

The  president  made  his  wife  and 
daughter  almost  mad  with  delight  when 
he  told  them  this  news.  Never  had  so 
rich  a  prize  shown  itself  so  docile  in  the 
matrimonial  net. 

"  You  will  be  Madame  Brunner  de  Mar- 
ville," said  the  father  to  his  daughter; 
"  for  I  will  get  permission  for  your  hus- 
band to  add  that  name  to  his  own,  and, 
later  on,  he  will  have  letters  of  naturali- 
zation. If  I  am  made  a  peer  of  France, 
he  will  succeed  me  !  " 

Madame  Camusot  devoted  five  daj'S  to 
the  preparation  of  her  daughter's  toilet. 
On  the  day  of  the  projected  interview  she 
dressed  Cecile  with  her  own  hands,  equip- 
ping her  as  carefully  as  the  admiral  of 
the  blue  equipped  the  yacht  of  England's 
queen  when  she  started  on  her  trip  to 
Germany. 

Pons  and  Schwab,  on  their  part,  cleaned 


80 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


and  dusted  the  Pons  Museum,  the  apart- 
ments and  funuturc,  as  actively  as  if  thej' 
had  been  sailors  swabbing'  the  decks  of  the 
admiral's  flag--ship.  Thei'e  was  not  a  speck 
of  dust  to  be  seen  on  the  carved  wood  ; 
every  bit  of  copper  gleamed  with  the 
polishing  it  had  undergone;  the  glass 
coverings  of  the  crayons  were  so  clean 
that  while  pi'otecting,  ihey  transparently 
displaj'cd  the  works  of  Latour,  of  Greuze 
and  of  Liautard — Liautard,  the  illustrious 
author  of  "The  Chocolate  Pot,"  the  mir- 
acle of  this  style  of  painting-,  which  is, 
alas,  so  fugitive.  Tlie  inimitable  enamel 
of  the  Florentine  bronzes  glistened.  The 
stained  windows  glowed  in  all  their  glori- 
ous hues.  Everything  shone  after  its 
kind,  and  breathed  its  music  to  the  soul 
in  that  concert  of  masterpieces,  arranged 
by  two  musicians,  both  of  whom  were 
poets,  and  poets  of  equal  rank. 


A  GERMAN  IDEA. 

Knowing,  and  being  skillful  enough  to 
evade,  the  difficulties  of  a  first  appear- 
ance on  the  scene,  the  two  women  were 
the  first  to  arrive;  for  they  wished  to 
feel  at  home.  Pons  introduced  his  friend 
Schmucke  to  his  two  relatives ;  in  whose 
eyes  the  old  German  seemed  no  better 
than  an  idiot.  Engrossed  as  they  were 
with  the  idea  of  a  suitor  who  was  a  four- 
fold millionaire,  the  two  dunces  paid  very 
little  attention  to  the  art  lectures  of  the 
worthy  Pons.  They  gazed  with  an  eye 
of  indifference  upon  Petitot's  enamels, 
displayed  in  the  red  velvet  fields  of  three 
marvelous  frames.  The  flowers  of  Van 
Huysum  and  of  David  de  Heim,  the  in- 
isects  of  Abraham  Mignon,  the  Van 
Ejxks,  the  Albert  Duikers,  the  genuine 
Cranachs,  tlie  Giorgione,  the  Sebastien 
del  Piombo,  the  Backhuysen,  the  Hob- 
bema,  the  Gericault,  the  rarities  of  paint- 
ing, failed,  one  and  all,  to  pique  their 
curiosity :  for  they  were  waiting  for  the 
sun  that  was  to  light  up  these  treasures. 
Yet  the  beauty  of  certain  Etruscan  jewels 


and  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  snuff-boxes 
did  astonish  them.  The^'  were  in  ecsta- 
sies— of  complaisance — over  some  Floren- 
tine bronzes  which  they  had  in  their 
hands,  when  in  came  Madame  Cibot  and 
announced — "  Monsieur  Brunner."  With- 
out turning  round  they  profited  by  a  su- 
perb Venetian  mirror,  framed  in  enor- 
mous pieces  of  carved  ebonj',  to  examine 
this  phenix  of  aspiring  swains. 

Fredei'ick,  who  had  received  a  liint  from 
Wilhelm,  had  made  the  most  of  the  little 
hair  that  still  remained  to  him;  he  wore 
a  becoming  pair  of  trousers  of  a  color  that 
was  soft  though  somber,  a  very  elegant 
silk  waistcoat,  the  cut  of  which  was  en- 
tirely new,  an  open-woi-k  shirt  of  linen, 
woven  by  the  hand  of  some  Friesland  wo- 
man, and  a  blue  cravat  with  white  stripes. 
His  watch-chain  and  the  handle  of  his 
cane  were  the  handiwork  of  Florent  and 
Chanor,  while,  as  for  the  coat.  Father 
Gralf  himself  had  made  it,  and  of  the 
finest  cloth.  Gloves  of  Swedish  leather 
bespoke  the  man  who  had  already  de- 
voured his  maternal  fortune.  The  mere 
gleam  of  his  varnished  boots  was  enough 
to  sugg-est  the  little  low-hung  bx'ougham 
of  the  banker,  even  if  the  ears  of  the  two 
sly  gossips  had  not  already  heard  the 
rumbling  of  its  wheels  upon  the  pavement 
of  the  deserted  Rue  de  Normandie. 

When  the  debauchee  of  twenty  is  a 
chrysalis  that  is  to  develop  into  a  banker, 
that  debauchee  at  forty  is  a  man  of  ob- 
servation; and  the  observing  faculty  of 
Frederick  Brunner  was  all  the  more  acute 
in  that  he  was  perfectly  well  aware  to 
what  good  account  a  German  may  turn 
his  naivete.  On  this  eventful  morning  he 
had  the  pensive  air  of  a  man  who  is  hesi- 
tating as  to  whether  he  shall  embrace  a 
married  life  or  continue  the  dissipated 
career  of  a  bachelor.  Such  a  physiog- 
nonij^  on  the  shoulders  of  a  Frenchified 
German  seemed  to  Cecile  superlatively 
romantic.  In  the  child  of  the  Virlazes 
slie  detected  a  Werther.  (Where  can 
you  find  a  young  girl  who  does  not  intro- 
duce a  little  romance  into  the  history  of 
her  marriage  ?)  When  Brunner  grew  en- 
thusiastic at  the  sight  of  the  magnificent 
works  of  art — the  fruit  of  forty  years  of 


,!li;N"Mi'i' 


La  Cibot  asd   Kemosencq. 


Balzac,  Volume  One. 


CocsiN  Pons. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


81 


patient  search — and — to  Pons's  intense 
delight — rated  them  at  their  real  value, 
as  no  one  had  till  then,  Cecile  deemed  her- 
self the  happiest  of  womankind.  "He 
must  be  a  poet !  "  said  Mademoiselle  de 
Marville  to  herself.  "  He  can  see  millions 
in  this  bric-a-brac."  A  poet  is  a  man 
who  does  not  reckon  ;  who  allows  his  wife 
to  pull  the  purse-strings ;  a  man  easily 
managed  ;  a  man  to  be  amused  \vith  tri- 
fles. 

Every  pane  in  the  two  windows  of  the 
old  man's  room  was  of  Swiss  stained  glass. 
The  smallest  of  the  panes  was  worth  a 
thousand  francs,  and  there  were  sixteen 
of  these  masterpieces,  which  are,  nowa- 
days, the  goal  of  many  a  voyage  of  dis- 
covery. 

In  1815  these  panes  might  have  been 
bought  for  from  six  to  ten  francs  apiece  ! 
The  value  of  the  sixt^^  pictures — undoubt- 
ed originals  not  retouched,  but  just  as 
they  came  from  the  master's  hand — of 
which  this  glorious  collection  consisted, 
could  be  tested  only  by  the  fierce  competi- 
tion of  the  auction-i'oom.  Each  picture 
was  incased  in  a  frame  of  immense  value ; 
and  there  were  specimens  of  every  kind  of 
frame  :  there  was  the  Venetian  frame,  with 
its  heavy  ornaments,  resembling  those  of 
the  English  plate  of  these  days  ;  there  was 
the  Roman  frame,  so  remarkable  on  ac- 
count of  that  which  artists  term  its  fla- 
fia;  there  was  the  Spanish  frame,  with 
its  bold  foliage  ;  there  were  Flemish 
frames  and  German  frames,  with  their 
naive  figures ;  there  were  tortoise-shell 
frames  inlaid  with  pewter,  copper,  mo- 
ther-of-pearl or  ivory  ;  there  wei'e  fi'ames 
in  ebony,  in  boxwood,  and  in  copper; 
there  was  the  frame  Louis  Treize,  the 
frame  Louis  Quinze,  the  frame  Louis 
Seize — in  short  a  unique  collection  of  the 
veiy  finest  models.  More  fortunate  than 
the  curators  of  the  treasures  of  Dresden 
and  Vienna,  Pons  was  the  pi'oud  pos- 
sessor of  a  frame  by  the  celebrated 
Brustolone,  the  Michael  Angelo  of  wood. 

It  was  quite  natural  that  Mademoiselle 
de  Marville  should  require  an  explanatory 
description  of  each  fresh  curiosity  that 
presented  itself  and  that  Brunner  should 
initiate  her  into  the  knowledge  of  these 


marvels.  Her  exclamations  were  so  naive; 
she  seemed  so  pleased  to  learn  from  Fred- 
erick's lips  the  value  and  the  beauties  of 
a  picture,  a  piece  of  sculpture  or  a  bronze, 
that  the  German  fairly  thawed,  and  his 
face  resumed  its  youthful  appearance. 
In  short,  both  he  and  Cecile  went  further 
than  they  intended  at  this  first  meeting — 
which  of  course  was  treated  as  a  chance 
meeting  from  first  to  last. 

The  seance  lasted  three  hours.  When 
it  was  over  Brunner  offered  his  arm  to 
Cecile  to  conduct  her  down  the  staircase. 
As  with  prudent  deliberation  she  descended 
the  stairs  still  chattering  about  the  Fine 
Arts,  she  embraced  the  opportunity  of 
expressing  her  surprise  at  the  admiration 
of  her  intended  for  the  gewgaws  of 
Cousin  Pons. 

"You  think,  then,"  said  she,  "that 
what  we  have  just  seen  is  worth  a  great 
deal  of  money  ?  " 

"Why,  mademoiselle,  if  your  cousin, 
Monsieur  Pons,  were  willing  to  sell  me 
his  collection  I  would  give  him  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  for  it  this  very 
evening ;  and  I  should  not  have  made  a 
bad  bargain  either;  the  sixty  pictures 
alone  would  fetch  more  than  that  at  a 
public  sale." 

"  I  believe  it,  since  j'ou  tell  me  so,"  re- 
plied Cecile;  "and  indeed  j-ou  must  be 
right,  since  j'ou  took  more  notice  of  the 
collection  than  of  anything  else." 

"Oh,  mademoiselle  !  "  exclaimed  Brun- 
ner, "my  only  answer  to  your  reproach 
will  be  to  ask  Madame  Camusot  to  allow 
me  to  call  upon  her  in  order  that  I  may 
have  the  pleasui-e  of  seeing  you  again." 

"  How  clever  she  is,  the  little  darling!  " 
thought  Madame  Camusot,  who  was  close 
at  her  daughter's  heels.  "We  shall  be 
most  delighted  to  see  you,  monsieur," 
she  added  aloud.  "I  hope  that  you  will 
come  with  our  cousin  Pons  and  dine  with 
us.  My  husband,  the  president,  will  be 
delighted  to  make  your  acquaintance. 
Thank  you.  Cousin  Pons ; "  and  so  say- 
ing, she  squeezed  Pons's  arnj  in  so  signifi- 
cant a  manner  that  the  consecrated  phrase. 
"We  are  friends  in  life  and  in  death," 
would  not  have  expres.sed  so  nmch.  The 
glance  which  accompanied  this  "  Thank 


82 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


you,  cousin,"  was  equivalent  to  an  em- 
brace. 

After  Brunner  had  seen  the  young  lady 
to  lier  carriag-e,  and  the  carriage — a  hired 
brougham— had  turned  the  corner  of  the 
Rue  Chariot,  Brunner  began  to  talk  bric- 
a-brac  to  Pons,  who  was  talking  marriage 
to  Brunner. 

"So  you  see  no  impediment?"  re- 
marked  Pons. 

"Oh!"  replied  Brunner,  "the  little 
girl  is  insignificant,  and  the  mother  rather 
affected  ;  we  will  see  about  it." 

"A  handsome  fortune  to  come,"  ob- 
served Pons ;  "  more  than  a  million  in 
expect — " 

"  Let's  postpone  the  subject  till  Mon- 
day!" replied  the  millionaire.  "If  you 
care  to  sell  your  collection  of  pictures,  I 
would  willingly  give  five  or  six  hundred 
thousand  francs — " 

"  Indeed  !  "  cried  the  worthy  man,  who 
did  not  know  he  was  so  rich.  "  But  no  ; 
I  could  not  part  with  that  which  makes 
my  happiness — I  could  onlj'-  sell  my  col- 
lection, to  be  delivered  after  my  decease." 

"  Well,  we  will  see  about  it." 

"Tliere  are  two  pieces  of  business 
afloat,"  said  the  collector,  who  was 
thinking  only  of  the  marriage. 

Brunner  now  took  leave  of  Pons  and 
was  whirled  away  in  his  well-appointed 
equipage.  Pons  watched  the  brougham 
as  it  receded  :  he  did  not  notice  Remo- 
nencq,  who  was  sitting  on  the  doorstep, 
smoking  his  pipe. 

Wishing  to  take  her  father's  advice, 
Madame  Camusot  de  Marville  went  that 
very  evening  to  his  house,  and  there 
found  the  Popinots.  Eager  to  gratify  a 
little  feeling  of  revenge,  very  natural  in 
a  mother  who  has  fail6d  in  her  endeavor 
to  catch  the  scion  of  a  wealthy  familj^ 
she  announced  that  Cecile  was  on  the 
point  of  making  a  splendid  match. 
"Whom  is  Cecile  going  to  marry  then  ?" 
was  the  question  that  passed  from  mouth 
to  mouth ;  and  thereupon  Madame  la 
Presidente,  without  supposing  that  she 
was  telling  her  secret,  dropped  so  many 
little  hints,  and  whispered  so  many  little 
confidences — which  Madame  Berthier  took 
care  to  confirm — that  on  the  following 


day  people  were  saying,  in  the  bourgeois 
empyrean  in  which  Pons's  gastronomic 
orbit  lay — "  Oh  !  Cecil  de  Marville  is 
going  to  be  married  to  a  young  German, 
who  is  about  to  become  a  banker,  from 
pure  philanthropy,  for  he  has  a  fortune  of 
four  million  francs.  He  is  a  hero  of  ro- 
mance, a  genuine  Werther,  a  charming, 
good-hearted  fellow,  who  has  sown  his 
wild  oats,  and  has  fallen  madly  in  love 
with  Cecile ;  it  is  a  case  of  love  at  first 
sight,  and  all  the  more  likely  to  be  last- 
ing, inasmuch  as  Cecile  was  surrounded 
by  rivals — all  the  painted  Madonnas  of 
Cousin  Pons,"  etc.,  etc. 

On  the  next  day  but  one  after  the  in- 
terview at  Pons's  rooms,  sundrj'  persons 
presented  themselves  to  offer  their  con- 
gratulations to  Madame  Camusot ;  their 
sole  object  being  to  discover  whether 
the  golden  tooth  really  existed.  There- 
upon the  wife  of  the  president  performed 
the  following  admirable  variations  (which 
mothers  may  consult,  as  we  used  former- 
ly to  consult  "The  Complete  Letter- 
Writer"). 

Thus,  to  Madame  ChifTreville  she  said  : 
"A  marriage  is  not  made  until  the  bride 
and  bridegroom  have  returned  from  the 
mairie  and  the  church ;  and  we  have,  as 
yet,  gone  no  further  than  an  interview ; 
so  I  rely  on  your  friendship  not  to  talk 
about  our  hopes." 

"You  are  very  fortunate,  Madame  la 
Presidente  ;  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  find 
husbands  for  our  daughters  in  these 
times !  " 

' '  Well !  you  know,  it  is  a  mere  ac- 
cident ;  but  marriages  often  come  about 
in  that  way." 

"Ah!  so  you  have  found  a  husband 
for  Cecile  ? "    said  Madame  Cardot. 

"Yes,"  replied  Madame  Camusot, who 
fully  understood  all  the  malice  of  that  so; 
"we  were  somewhat  fastidious  ;  that  was 
what  retarded  Cecile 's  establishment  in 
life.  But  now  we  have  found  all  we  re- 
quired ;  fortune,  amiability,  good  disposi- 
tion, and  an  agreeable  person ;  and  I 
must  say,  that  my  dear  little  daughter 
deserved  all  that.  Monsieur  Brunner  is 
a  charming  young  man,  full  of  distinc- 
tion ;  he  is  fond  of  luxury,  knows  what 


cousm  PONS. 


83 


life  is,  and  dotes  upon  Cecilc ;  in  fact  he 
loves  her  sincerely.  And,  spite  of  his 
three  or  four  millions,  Cecile  has  accepted 
him.  Our  ambition  did  not  soar  so  high, 
certainly,  but,  '  store  is  no  sore.'  " 

"  'Tis  not  the  money  that  weighs  with 
us ;  it  is  the  love  which  my  daughter  has 
inspired,"  said  Madame  Camusot  to  Mad- 
ame Lebas.  "  Monsieur  Brunner  is  in  so 
great  a  hurry,  that  he  wants  the  wedding 
to  take  place  immediately  after  the  ex- 
piration of  the  interval  required  by  law." 

"  He  is  a  foreigner—" 

"  He  is,  madame  ;  jet  I  own  that  I  am 
quite  contented.  Why  !  Monsieur  Brun- 
ner will  be  to  me  a  son  rather  than  a 
son-in-law.  His  delicacy  is  really  quite  cap- 
tivating. You  cannot  conceive  the  alac- 
rity with  which  he  embraced  the  proposal 
that  he  should  marry  under  the  regime 
dotal.  What  a  great  safeguard  for  fami- 
lies that  is  I  Monsieur  Brunner  will  lay 
out  twelve  hundred  thousand  francs  in 
pasture  land,  which  will  some  day  be 
added   to  Marville." 

And  on  the  following  day  there  were 
other  variations  on  the  same  theme. 
Monsieur  Brunner  was  a  grand  seigneur, 
and  was  acting  altogether  like  a  grand 
seigneur ;  he  never  counted  cost ;  and  if 
Monsieur  de  Marville  could  obtain  letters 
of  naturalization  for  him — and  the  Min- 
ister owed  Monsieur  Camusot  a  little 
scrap  of  legislation — the  son-in-law  would 
become  a  peer  of  France.  No  one  knew 
the  extent  of  Monsieur  Brunner's  fortune  ; 
he  had  the  finest  horses  and  the  finest 
carriages  in   Paris;  etc.,  etc. 

The  pleasure  that  the  Camusots  took, 
in  proclaiming  their  hopes,  showed  how 
unexpected  was  their  triumph. 

Immediately  after  the  interview  at 
Cousin  Pons's  lodgings.  Monsieur  de 
Marville,  at  the  instigation  of  his  wife, 
persuaded  the  minister  of  justice,  the 
chii'f  judge  of  his  own  court,  and  the  at- 
torney-general to  dine  with  hitn  on  the 
day  fixed  for  the  introduction  of  this 
phenix  of  sons-in-law  to  the  family  circle  ; 
and,  notwithstanding  the  brief  notice  they 
had  received,  the  three  grandees  accepted 
the  invitation ;  for  they  all  fully  under- 
stood the  part  assigned  to  them  by  pater- 


familias, and  gladlj-  lent  him  their  aid. 
In  France,  a  mother  of  a  family,  who  is 
fishing  for  a  rich  son-in-law,  may  count 
on  receiving  ready  help.  The  Count  and 
Countess  Popinot,  also,  contributed  by 
theii"  presence  to  the  splendor  of  the  oc- 
casion (though  they  thought  that  to  in- 
vite them  showed  a  certain  want  of  good 
taste).  The  dinner-party  consisted  of 
eleven  persons ;  for  Cecile 's  grandfather, 
Camusot  senior,  and  his  wife,  were  indis- 
pensable members  of  a  reunion,  which, 
from  the  standing  and  position  of  its 
members,  was  intended  to  bind  Monsieur 
Brunner  by  a  definitive  engagement,  from 
which  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to 
secede.  He  had  already,  as  we  have  seen, 
been  described  as  one  of  the  richest  of 
German  capitalists,  as  a  man  of  taste — 
did  he  not  love  the  dear  little  daughter  ? 
— and  as  the  future  rival  of  the  Nucingens, 
the  Kellers,  and  the  Du  Tillets. 

"To-day  is  our  reception  day,"  said 
Madame  la  Presidente,  with  stupid  sim- 
plicity', as  she  ran  over  the  names  of  tlie 
guests  to  the  man  whom  she  regarded  as 
her  son-in-law.  ''  We  have  none  but  inti- 
mate friends  here  to-day.  First,  there  is 
mj'  husband's  father,  who,  as  you  know, 
is  about  to  be  made  a  peer ;  then,  there 
are  the  Count  and  Countess  Popinot, 
whose  son's  suit  to  Cecile  we  rejected, 
on  account  of  his  not  being  rich  enough, 
though  we  are  still  very  good  friends; 
there  are  the  minister  of  justice,  our  chief 
president,  our  attorney -general  —  our 
friends,  in  short.  We  shall  be  obliged 
to  dine  rather  late,  on  account  of  the 
House,  which  never  rises  till  six  o'clock." 

Brunner  looked  at  Pons  in  a  significant 
manner,  and  Pons  rubbed  his  hands,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  You  see  what  sort  of 
friends  ivehavc,  I  have  !  " 

Madame  Camusot  (like  a  clever  woman, 
as  she  was)  had  something  to  say  to  her 
cousin  in  private,  in  order  to  leave  Cecile 
alone  with  her  Werther  for  a  moment. 
Cecile  chattered  away,  and  skillfully  con- 
trived that  Frederick  should  catch  a 
glimpse  of  a  German  dictionaiy,  a  Ger- 
man grammar  and  a  Goethe  which  she 
had  hidden. 

"  Ah  !  you  are  learning  German  !  "  said 


84 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Brunner,  turning  red.  (It  is  only  French 
women  who  can  invent  these  little  traps.) 

"  Oh  !  "  cried  .Cecile,  "  how  mischievous 
j'ou  are  !  It  is  not  rig-lit,  sir,  to  ransack 
my  little  hiding-places  in  that  way.  I 
want  to  read  Goethe  in  the  original :  I 
began  learning  German  two  j'ears  ago." 

"  Then  the  grammar  must  be  extremely 
difficult  to  master ;  for  there  are  only  ten 
pages  cut,"  replied  Brunner  naively; 
whereupon  Cecile  blushed,  and  turned 
away  in  order  to  hide  her  confusion.  Now 
tokens  such  as  these,  no  German  can 
possibly  withstand;  and  accordingly  Brun- 
ner seized  the  hand  of  Cecile,  drew  her, 
all  disconcerted  as  she  was,  within  the 
range  of  his  regard,  and  gazed  at  her,  as 
lovers  do  gaze  at  one  another,  in  the 
romances  of  Auguste  Lafontaine  of  pudi- 
bund  memory. 

"You  are  adorable!"  he  murmui'cd. 
The  rebellious  gesture  with  which  Cecile 
greeted  these  words  meant :  "And  what 
are  ymt,,  then  ?  Who  could  help  loving 
you  ?  " 

When  her  mother  and  Pons  rejoined 
her,  she  whispered  to  the  former  :  "All's 
well,  mamma." 

The  appearance  presented  by  a  family 
during  such  an  evening  beggars  descrix)- 
tion.  Ever^'  one  was  pleased  to  see  a 
mother  securing  a  good  match  for  her 
child.  Brunner,  who  pretended  not  to 
understand  anything,  Cecile  who  under- 
stood everything,  and  the  president  who 
went  about  fishing  for  congratulations, 
each  and  all  received  double-meaninged — 
or  double-barreled — felicitations.  When 
Cecile,  in  an  undertone,  and  in  the  most 
ingenious  and  gingerlj'^  manner  possible, 
imparted  to  Pons  her  father's  intentions 
with  reference  to  the  annuity  of  twelve 
hundred  francs,  all  the  blood  in  the  old 
man's  body  seemed  to  be  tingling-  in  his 
ears  ;  he  felt  as  if  all  the  gas-jets  in  the 
footlights  of  his  theater  were  flaring  be- 
fore his  eyes,  and  he  flatly  declined  the 
ofTer,  assigning-  as  a  reason  for  his  refusal 
the  revelation  which  had  fallen  from 
Brunner's  lips  as  to  the  value  of  the  Pons 
Museum. 

The  minister,  the  chief  president,  the 
attorney-general,  all  the  bus3'  folk,  now 


withdrew ;  and,  verj"-  shortly  afterward, 
Camusot  senior  and  the  ex-notary  Cardot, 
supported  hy  his  son-in-law  Bertliier,  were 
the  onlj'  guests — Pons  and  Brunner  ex- 
cepted— that  remained  in  the  room.  The 
worth}^  Pons,  finding  himself  quite  en 
famille,  and  yielding,  as  men  of  feeling 
invariably  do  yield,  to  the  impulse  of  the 
moment,  most  inopportunely  thanked  the 
president  and  Madame  de  Mai'ville  for 
the  olTer  that  Cecile  had  just  convej^ed  to 
him ;  whereupon  Brunner,  to  whom  this 
annuity,  thus  offered,  seemed  like  a  pre- 
mium, was  struck  by  an  Israelitish  re- 
flection, and  assumed  an  attitude  which 
betokened  the  more  than  frigid  reverie  of 
the  calculator. 

"  Whether  I  come  to  terms  with  our 
friend  Brunner  about  my  collection,  or 
keep  it;  the  collection,  or  its  proceeds,  will, 
in  any  case,  belong  to  your  familj'^,"  said 
Pons,  when  he  had  informed  his  astonished 
relatives  that  he  possessed  so  large  a  fort- 
une. 

The  overindulgence  of  both  father  and 
mother  toward  Cecile — the  idol  of  the 
household — had  not  escaped  the  observa- 
tion of  Brunner;  neither  did  the  favora- 
ble change  in  the  beai-ing  of  all  these 
ignoramuses  toward  the  man  thus  pro- 
moted from  a  state  that  was  branded 
with  paui)erism  to  affluence  fail  to  iui- 
press  him :  accordingly,  he  began  to 
amuse  himself,  by  exciting  the  surprise 
of  these  worthy  bourgeois,  and  extorting 
ejaculations  of  wonder  from  their  lips. 

"I  told  Mademoiselle  Cecile  that  Mon- 
sieur Pons's  pictures  were  worth  that 
sum  to  me;  but,  having  regard  to  the 
price  which  all  that  is  uniciue  in  art  has 
reached  in  these  days,  there  is  no  fore- 
seeing how  much  this  collection  might 
fetch  if  it  were  put  up  for  public  compe- 
tition. The  sixty  pictures  would  sell  for 
a  million  francs ;  I  saw  several  that  were 
worth  fifty  thousand  francs  apiece." 

"  It  is  a  good  thing  to  be  your  inhcri- 
tant,"  said  the  quondam  notary  to  Pons. 

"But  m.y  inheritant  is  my  cousin 
Cecile,"  rejjlied  Pons,  still  persisting  in 
his  claim  to  relationship. 

Every  one  seemed  to  be  seized  with  a 
sudden  admiration  for  the  old  musician. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


85 


"  She  will  be  a  veiy  rich  heiress,"  said 
Cardot,  laughing- ;  and  off  he  went. 

Camusot  senior,  the  president,  Madame 
Camusot,  Cecile,  Brunnei",  Berthier  and 
Pons  were  now  left  together  \>y  the  rest 
of  the  party  ;  for  it  was  presumed  that 
a  formal  demand  for  Cecile's  hand  would 
now  be  made.  And,  in  fact,  so'soon  as 
the  persons  just  mentioned  were  alone, 
Bruuner  opened  fire  with  an  inquiry 
which  seemed  to  Cecile's  relatives  to 
augur  well. 

"I  believe  I  was  given  to  understand," 
said  Brunner,  addressing  Madame  Camu- 
sot, "  that  Mademoiselle  Cecile  is  an  only 
daughtei- — " 

"Certainly,"  replied  the  lady,  pi'oudly. 

"You  will  meet  with  no  difliculties  in 
anj'  quarter,"  said  the  worthy  Pons, 
in  order  to  determine  Brunner  to  formu- 
late his  request. 

But  Brunner  suddenly  became  thought- 
ful ;  a  fatal  silence  diffused  the  strangest 
chill  among  the  assembled  group  ;  had 
Madame  Camusot  admitted  that  her 
little  daughter  was  epileptic,  things 
could  not  have  been  worse.  The  presi- 
dent, thinking  that  his  daughter  was 
best  away,  made  a  sign  to  Cecile,  which 
she  interpreted  correctly  by  leaving  the 
room.  Brunner  still  remained  silent  ; 
the  persons  present  began  to  stare  at 
one  another ;  and  the  situation  became 
mast  embarrassing.  Thereupon  Camusot 
senior  (who  was  a  man  of  experience), 
guessing  that  some  difficulties  had  su- 
pervened, took  the  German  into  Madame 
Camusot 's  room,  under  pretense  of  show- 
ing liim  the  fan  which  Pons  had  discov- 
ered, and  motioned  to  his  son,  his  daugh- 
ter-in-law, and  Pons  io  leave  him  and 
Brunner  alone  tog-ether. 

"There  is  the  masterpiece  !  "  said  the 
old  silk-merchant,  pointing  to  the  fan. 

"It  is  worth  five  thousand  fi-ancs,"  re- 
plied Brunner,  after  having  examined  it. 

"  Did  3^ou  not  come  here,  monsieur, 
with  the  intention  of  asking  for  my 
granddaughter's  hand  ?  "  pursued  the 
future  peer  of  .France. 

"  I  did,  monsieur,"  said  Brunner  ;  "  and 
I  entreat  you  to  believe  that  no  alliance 
could  be  more  flattering  to  me  than  this. 


I  shall  never  find  a  young  ladj'  hand- 
somer, more  amiable,  or  more  to  my 
taste  than  Mademoiselle  Cecile ;   but — " 

"Oh!  no  buts,"  said  old  Camusot; 
"or  if  there  are  to  be  any  buts,  trans- 
late them  at  once,  my  dear  sir — " 

"Monsieur,"  pursued  Brunner,  serious- 
ly, "I  am  heartily  glad  that  there  is  no 
engagement  on  either  side ;  for  the  qual- 
ity of  being  an  only  daughter — a  quahty 
that  is  so  valuable  in  the  e_yes  of  every 
one,  except  myself — forms  an  insuperable 
impediment — " 

"What,  sir,"  broke  in  the  astounded 
grandfather,  "  do  you  convert  that  which 
is  an  immense  advantage  into  a  positive 
drawback  ?  Your  conduct  is  really  so  ex- 
traordinary that  I  should  be  extremelj' 
glad  to  hear  your  reasons  for  it." 

"  Sir,"  replied  the  German,  phlegmati- 
cally,  "  I  came  here,  this  evening,  with 
the  intention  of  asking  Monsieur  le  Presi- 
dent for  his  daughter's  hand :  I  wished 
to  insure  to  Mademoiselle  Cecile  a  brilliant 
future,  bj'  offering  her  as  much  of  my 
fortune  as  she  should  be  willing  to  accept; 
but  an  only  daughter  is  a  child  who  lias 
been  allowed,  through  parental  indul- 
gence, to  do  as  she  pleased,  and  has 
never  known  what  it  is  to  be  thwarted 
in  her  wishes.  This  familj^  resembles 
many  families,  in  which  I,  formerly,  had 
an  opportunitj^  of  studj'ing  the  worship 
that  is  offered  to  this  species  of  divinity; 
not  only  is  your  granddaughter  the  idol 
of  the  household,  but  it  is  Madame  la 
Presidente  who  wears  the  —  j'ou  know 
what  !  Sir,  these  ej'es  of  mine  have  seen 
my  father's  home  turned  into  a  hell  from 
this  very  cause :  m\'  step-mother  —  the 
fountain  from  which  all  my  misfortunes 
flowed— an  only  daughter,  the  idol  of  her 
parents,  the  most  cluirming  of  brides, 
turned  out  an  incarnate  flend.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  Mademoiselle  Cecile  is  an  ex- 
ception to  my  general  rule  ;  but  I  am  no 
longer  a  young  man;  lama  man  of  forty; 
and  the  disparity  of  our  ages  involves 
difficulties  which  prevent  me  from  confer- 
ring happiness  on  a  young  lady  who  is 
accustomed  to  be  obeyed  by  Madame  la 
Presidente,  and  to  wliom  JIadame  la  Presi- 
dente listens  as  to  an  oracle.     By  what 


86 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


right  could  I  exact  from  Mademoiselle 
Cecile  an  entire  change  of  habits  and 
ideas  ?  Instead  of  a  father  and  mother, 
accustomed  to  bow  to  her  lightest  caprice, 
she  would  find  in  me  an  egotistical  quad- 
ragenarian :  if  she  resists  that  egotism, 
'tis  the  quadragenarian  who  will  be  van- 
quished. As  a  man  of  honor,  therefore, 
I  withdraw  my  suit.  I  desire,  moreover, 
to  take  upon  mj'self  all  the  blame  of  this 
rupture ;  if,  however,  it  should  be  neces- 
sary to  explain  why  I  have  paid  but  one 
visit  to  this  house — " 

"If  such,  monsieur,  be  the  motives  of 
your  conduct,"  interposed  the  future 
peer,  "  however  singular  they  may  ap- 
pear, they  are  at  least  plausible — " 

"  I  beg,  monsieur,  that  you  will  not 
cast  the  slightest  doubt  upon  my  sincer- 
ity',"  replied  Brunner,  emphatically,  in- 
terrupting Monsieur  Camusot.  "  If  j'ou 
know  of  some  poor  girl,  one  of  an  over- 
numerous  family,  one  who,  though  por- 
tionless, has  been  well  brought  uji — and 
there  are  many  such  girls  in  France — I 
am  quite  ready  to  marry  her,  if  her  dis- 
position be  such  as  to  promise  me  happi- 
ness." 

During  the  silence  which  succeeded  this 
announcement,  Frederick  Brunner  quitted 
Cecile's  grandfather,  and,  having  politely 
taken  leave  of  the  president  and  his  wife, 
departed.  A  living  commentary  on  the 
parting  salutation  of  her  Werther,  Cecile 
now  reappeared,  pale  as  a  person  at  the 
point  of  death.  Concealed  in  her  mother's 
wardrobe  she  had  overheard  every  word 
that  had  been  uttered. 

"  Refused,"  she  murmured  in  her  mo- 
ther's ears. 

"And  on  what  ground?"  demanded 
Madame  Camusot  of  her  embarrassed 
father-in-law. 

"  Upon  the  pretty  pretext  that  only 
daughters  are  spoiled  children,"  replied 
the  old  man.  "And  he  is  not  altogether 
wrong,"  added  he,  embracing  this  oppor- 
tunitj'  of  attacking  his  daughter-in-law, 
who  had  been  boring  him  to  death  for 
twenty  years. 

"  This  will  kill  my  daughter!  and  you 
will  be  her  murderer!"  said  Madame 
Camusot,  addressing  Pons,  while  she  sup- 


ported her  daughter,  who  thought  proper 
to  justify  her  mother's  language  by  sink- 
ing into  her  arms. 

The  president  and  his  wife  dragged  Ce- 
cile to  an  armchair,  where  she  completed 
her  fainting  fit.  The  grandfather  rang 
for  the  sei'vants. 


XL 


PONS  BURIED   IN   GRAVEL. 

"I  DETECT  the  plot  which  that  gen- 
tleman has  brewed,"  said  the  furious 
mother,  pointing  to  Pons. 

At  these  words,  Pons  sprung  up  as  if 
the  last  trumpet  had  resounded  in  his 
ears. 

"  That  gentleman,"  pursued  Madame 
Camusot,  whose  eyes  resembled  two 
fountains  of  green  bile,  "  that  gentleman 
has  seen  fit  to  revenge  a  harmless  joke 
with  an  insult.  Who  will  believe  that 
this  German  is  in  his  right  mind  ?  Either 
he  is  the  accomplice  of  an  atrocious  act  of 
vengeance,  or  he  is  mad.  I  hope,  Mon- 
sieur Pons,  that,  for  the  future,  j-ou  will 
spare  us  the  pain  of  seeing  you  in  a  house 
into  which  j-ou  have  endeavored  to  intro- 
duce shame  and  dishonor." 

Pons,  who  was  nov/  changed  into  a 
statue,  kept  his  eyes  fixed  upon  a  rose 
in  the  pattern  of  the  carpet,  and  twiddled 
his  thumbs. 

"  Well  !  you  are  still  there,  you  mon- 
ster of  ingratitude  !  "  cried  Madame  Ca- 
musot, looking  round.  "We  shall  never 
be  at  home — neither  your  master  nor  I 
— if  this  gentleman  should  ever  call ! " 
she  added,  speaking  to  the  servants,  and 
pointing  to  Pons,  "  Go  you,  John,  and 
fetch  the  doctor,  and  you,  Madeleine, 
bring  some  hartshorn,  quick  !  " 

In  Madame  Camusot's  view  of  the  mat- 
ter, the  reasons  assigned  by  Brunner  were 
mere  pretexts,  concealing  reasons  that 
were  unavowed ;  but  that  rendered  the 
rupture  of  the  proposed  marriage  all  the 
more  certain.  With  that  rapidity  of 
thought  which  women  are  wont  to  dis- 
play   in    critical    emergencies,    Madame 


COUSIN    PONS. 


87 


Camusot  had  hit  upon  the  only  feasible 
plan  for  retrieving  the  check  she  had  sus- 
tained, namely,  to  charge  Pons  with  an 
act  of  premeditated  revenge.  This  device 
— an  infernal  de\ice,  so  far  as  Pons  was 
concerned — saved  the  honor  of  the  family. 
Constant  in  her  hatred  of  Pons,  she  had 
clothed  a  woman's  mere  suspicion  with 
the  garb  of  absolute  truth.  Women,  for 
the  most  part,  have  a  creed  of  their  own 
and  a  morality  of  their  own  ;  thej'  believe 
in  the  objective  reality  of  everything 
that  it  suits  their  interests  and  passions 
to  believe.  Madame  Camusot,  however, 
went  a  gi'eat  deal  further  than  that ;  she 
consumed  the  whole  evening  in  forcing 
upon  the  president  her  own  convictions ; 
and  on  the  morrow,  the  magistrate  was 
thorouglily  persuaded  of  his  cousin's 
guilt.  Now  no  one  will  deny  that  the 
conduct  of  Madame  Camusot  was  execra- 
ble ;  yet,  there  is  not  a  mother,  who,  in 
like  circumstances,  would  not  act  as  Mad- 
ame Camusot  acted.  Every  mother  will 
sacrifice  the  honor  of  a  stranger  to  that 
of  her  own  daughter;  the  means  eraploj^ed 
will  be  different;  the  result  to  be  achieved 
will  be  the  same. 

The  musician  rushed  downstairs  with 
great  rapidity  ;  but  as  he  made  his  way 
toward  the  boulevard,  and  thence  onward 
to  the  theater,  his  steps  were  slow.  Me- 
chanically he  entered  the  play  -  house  ; 
mechanically  he  stepped  into  his  place ; 
mechanically  he  conducted  the  orchestra. 
During  the  entr'acts,  he  replied  so  vague- 
ly to  the  questions  addressed  to  him  by 
Schmucke,  that  Schmucke  kept  his  un- 
easiness to  himself ;  for  he  thought  that 
Pons  had  fairly  taken  leave  of  his  senses. 
For  a  man  so  childlike  as  Pons  was,  the 
scene  which  had  just  occurred  assumed 
all  the  dimensions  of  a  catastrophe.  To 
arouse  a  hideous  hate  there  where  he  had 
meant  to  introduce  happiness,  was  a  com- 
plete subversion  of  existence.  From  the 
eyes,  from  the  gestures,  and  from  the 
voice  of  Madame  Camusot  he  had  learned 
— at  last — that  she  was  his  deadly  foe. 

On  the  morrow,  Madame  Camusot  came 
to  a  decisive  resolution,  which  suited  the 
nature  of  the  case,  and  was  indorsed  with 
her  husband's  approbation.     It  was  re- 


solved that  Cecile's  portion  should  be 
made  to  comprise  the  estate  of  Marville, 
the  hotel  in  the  Rue  de  Hanovre,  and  a 
hundred  thousand  francs  in  cash.  In  the 
course  of  the  morning,  Madame  Camusot, 
fully  understanding  that  the  only  mode  of 
repairing  such  a  defeat  as  she  had  sus- 
tained was  hy  a  ready-made  match,  went 
to  call  upon  the  Countess  Popinot,  to 
whom  she  told  the  tale  of  Pons's  fright- 
ful vengeance  and  of  the  terrible  hoax 
that  he  had  concerted.  Everything 
seemed  credible  when  the  reason  assigned 
for  the  breaking  off  of  the  match  was  the 
fact  of  Cecile's  being  an  only  daughter. 
At  the  close  of  her  harangue,  Madame 
Camusot  dexterously  displaj'ed  the  ad- 
vantages of  being  called  Popinot  de  Mar- 
ville, and  the  magnificence  of  the  marriage 
portion.  Regard  being  had  to  the  value 
of  landed  property  in  Normandy,  and  cal- 
culating interest  at  two  per  cent,  the 
estate  of  Marville  represented  a  capital 
of  about  nine  hundred  thousand  francs ; 
and  the  hotel  in  the  Rue  de  Hanovre  was 
valued  at  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
francs.  No  reasonable  family  could  re- 
ject such  an  alliance ;  and,  according)}', 
Count  Popinot  and  his  wife  accepted  it. 
Then,  as  having  a  personal  interest  in  the 
reputation  of  the  family  of  which  they 
were  about  to  form  a  part,  they  promised 
to  assist  in  explaining  the  catastrophe 
which  had  occurred  on  the  pi'eceding 
evening. 

So  now,  in  the  house  of  this  identical 
Camusot  senior,  Cecile's  grandfather,  and 
in  the  presence  of  those  identical  persons, 
who,  but  a  few  days  before,  had  been 
gathered  together  in  that  veiy  house,  and 
had  heard  from  the  lips  of  Madame  Ca- 
musot the  Brunner-litany,  the  same  Mad- 
ame Camusot,  whom  every  one  shrunk 
from  accosting,  boldly  anticipated  all  the 
difficulties  of  an  explanation. 

"Really,"  said  she,  "in  these  days  it 
is  impossible  to  take  too  many  precautions 
when  it  is  a  question  of  marriage ;  and 
more  especially  where  one  has  foreigners 
to  deal  with." 

"And  why,  madame  ?  "  said  a  lady. 

"  What  has  happened  to  j'ou  ?  "  asked 
Madame  Chiffreville. 


88 


THE    HUMAJY    COMEDY. 


"What?  Do  you  mean  to  say  you 
haven't  heard  of  our  adventure  with  this 
fellow,  Brunner,  who  had  the  audacitj'  to 
aspire  to  the  hand  of  Cecile  ?  He  is  the 
son  of  a  German  tavern-keeper  ;  his  uncle 
used  to  sell  rabbit-skins." 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  And  you  so  prudent  !" 
exclaimed  a  lady. 

"These  adventurers  are  so  cunning! 
But  we  have  learned  the  whole  story  from 
Berthier.  This  German  has  a  friend — a 
poor  wretch  of  a  flute-player  !  He  is  on 
intimate  terms  with  a  man  who  keeps  a 
lodging--house  in  the  Rue  du  Mail,  and  with 
tailors.  We  discovered  that  he  has  led 
a  hfe  of  the  grossest  debauchery ;  and  no 
fortune  can  suffice  for  a  scamp  who  has 
already'  squandered  all  that  he  inherited 
from  his  mother — " 

"  Why,  your  daughter  would  have  led 
a  most  miserable  life  ! "  said  Madame 
Berthier. 

"  And  how  did  he  contrive  to  get  in- 
troduced to  you?"  inquired  the  aged 
Madame  Lebas. 

"  Oh,  tlirough  a  bit  of  revenge,  on  the 
part  of  Monsieur  Pons ;  he,  it  was,  who 
introduced  to  us  this  worthy-  gentleman, 
in  order  to  make  us  look  ridiculous.  This 
Brunner  —  Brunner,  by  -  the  -  by,  means 
Fountain,  and  they  palmed  him  off  upon 
us  as  a  grand  seigneur,  forsooth.  This 
Brunner  is  a  man  of  broken  constitution, 
a  man  with  a  bald  head  and  bad  teeth  ; 
so  that  to  see  him,  even  once  only,  was 
quite  enough  to  put  me  upon  my  guard." 

"  But  how  about  this  large  fortune  that 
you  mentioned?"  said  a  young  woman, 
timidly. 

"The  fortune  is  not  so  large  as  it  is  said 
to  be.  The  tailors,  the  lodging-house 
keeper,  and  he,  all  clubbed  together,  and 
scraped  out  their  cash-boxes  to  form  a 
bank.  What  is  a  bank  nowadays — that 
is  to  say,  to  start  one  ?  Why,  it  is  merely 
a  license  to  become  a  bankrupt.  A  wo- 
man goes  to  bed  a  millionaire,  and  wakes 
to  find  herself  stripped  of  everything  but 
her  paraphernalia.  Our  opinion  of  this 
gentleman  was  formed  as  soon  as  we 
heard  him  speak,  naj%  directly  we  caught 
sight  of  him ;  you  can  tell,  from  his 
very  gloves,  from  his  very  overcoat,  that 


he  is  nothing  but  a  common  workman, 
whose  father  kept  a  German  cook-shop ; 
that  he  is  a  low-minded  fellow,  who  drinks 
beer,  and  smokes — (oh  !  madame  !  would 
you  believe  it  ?)—five-and-twenty  pipes  a 
day  !  What  a  destiny  for  my  poor  Lili ! 
The  very  thought  of  it  makes  me  shudder 
even  now.  But  God  preserved  us  from 
it !  Besides,  Lili  had  no  love  for  the  man. 
Now  could  we,  I  ask  3'ou,  expect  such  a 
hoax  on  the  part  of  a  relative,  of  one 
who  was  a  constant  visitor  at  our  house, 
who  had  been  dining  with  us  twice  a  week 
for  the  last  twenty  years ;  a  man  whom 
we  have  loaded  with  favors,  and  who 
played  his  part  so  thoroughly  that  he 
actually  named  Cecile  as  his  heir  in  the 
presence  of  the  keeper  of  the  seals,  the 
attorney-general  and  the  first  president. 
This  Brunner  and  Monsieur  Pons  had 
agreed  to  represent  each  other  to  be  mil- 
lionaires. No,  I  do  assure  you,  all  you 
ladies  would  have  been  taken  in  by  this 
artist's  hoax ! " 

Within  a  few  weeks  after  this  gather- 
ing, the  united  families  of  Popinot  and 
Camusot  and  their  adherents  had  gained 
an  easy  victory  in  society ;  for  no  one 
there  undertook  the  defense  of  the 
wretched  Pons,  the  parasite,  the  sullen 
schemer,  the  miser,  the  pretended  good 
fellow,  who  now  lay  buried  beneath  a 
mountain  of  contempt,  and  was  regarded 
as  a  viper  nursed  in  the  bosom  of  the 
familj^ — as  a  man  of  almost  unparalleled 
depravity — a  dangerous  buffoon,  whom  it 
was  desirable  entirely  to  forget. 

About  a  month  after  the  Werther — who 
was  no  Werther — had  declined  the  match, 
poor  Pons,  just  risen  from  a  sick-bed,  to 
which  he  had  been  confined  by  a  nervous 
fever,  was  sunning  himself  along  the 
boulevards,  leaning  on  Schmucke's  arm. 
None  of  the  loungers  on  the  Boulevard 
du  Temple  laughed  at  the  Pair  of  Nut- 
Crackers  now — the  broken  aspect  of  the 
one  and  the  touching  solicitude  of  the 
other  on  behalf  of  his  convalescent  friend 
were  not  subjects  for  ridicule. 

When  the  two  friends  had  reached  the 
Boulevard  Poissonniere,  Pons  hatl  re- 
gainsd  a  little  color  through  breathing 
the  air  of  the  boulevards,  which  is   so 


COUSIN    PONS. 


89 


bracing;  for  wherever  there  is  a  dense 
throng  of  human  beings  the  atmosphere 
is  so  vitahzing  that  the  exemption  from 
mala  aria  of  the  noisome  Ghetto,  which 
swarms  with  Jews,  is  notorious  at  Rome. 
Perhaps,  also,  the  siglit  of  that  which  had 
been  a  source  of  daily  delight  to  him — the 
grand  panorama  of  Parisian  life — exer- 
cised a  restorative  influence  on  the  sick 
man.  The  two  friends  were  walking 
arm-in-arm  ;  but  from  time  to  time  Pons 
would  leave  Schmucke's  side  to  go  and 
examine  the  novelties  recently  exposed 
for  sale  in  the  shop  windows.  Quitting 
Schmucke's  arm  in  front  of  the  Varieties 
Theater  to  make  one  of  these  excursions. 
Pons  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
Count  Popinot,  whom  he  accosted  in  the 
most  respectful  manner ;  for  the  ex-Minis- 
ter  was  one  of  those  men  for  whom  Pons 
entertained  the  highest  respect  and  es- 
teem. 

"Ah,  monsieur!"  replied  the  peer  of 
France  with  great  severity,  "I  cannot 
understand  how  j'ou  can  be  so  wanting 
in  tact  as  to  salute  a  person  connected 
with  the  family  which  j'ou  have  tried  to 
cover  with  disgrace  and  ridicule  \>j  an  act 
of  revenge  such  as  artists  well  know  how 
to  devise.  Understand,  monsieur,  that 
from  this  daj'  foi'th  you  and  I  must  be 
strangers  to  one  another.  Madame  la 
Comtesse  Popinot.  shares  the  indignation 
with  which  your  conduct  toward  the  Mar- 
villes  has  inspired  the  whole  circle." 

Ha\ing  thus  delivered  himself,  the 
former  Minister  passed  on,  leaving  Pons 
thunderstruck.  The  passions.  Justice 
and  the  Government,  invariably  fail  to 
take  into  consideration  the  condition  of 
the  beings  whom  they  punish.  The  states- 
man, impelled  by  family  interests  to  anni- 
hilate Pons,  was  blind  to  the  physical 
weakness  of  this  formidable  foe. 

"  What  is  the  madder  wid  you,  my  boor 
friend?  "  cried  Schmucke,  turning  as  pale 
as  Pons  himself. 

"  I  have  just  received  another  dagger- 
thrust  in  vay  heart,"  replied  the  worthy 
man,  leaning  heavily  on  Schmucke's  arm ; 
"I  do  believe  that  it  is  onh-  the  good  God 
Himself  who  has  the  right  to  do  good ; 
and  that  that  is  why  all  those  who  meddle 


w^ith  what  is  His  business  only  are  so 
cruelly  punished  for  their  conduct." 

This  artist's  sarcasm  was  a  supreme 
effort  on  the  part  of  this  excellent  creat- 
ure, who  wished  to  dissipate  the  terror 
imprinted  on  the  features  of  his  friend. 

"I  belief  so  too,"  replied  Schmucke, 
with  simplicity. 

The  whole  matter  was  quite  incompre- 
hensible to  Pons,  to  whom  neither  the 
Camusots  nor  the  Popinots  had  sent  an^' 
invitation  to  be  present  at  Cecile's  wed- 
ding. On  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  he 
saw  Monsieur  Cardot  coming  toward  him ; 
but,  warned  by  the  allocution  of  the  peer 
of  France,  Pons  took  good  care  not  to 
stop  this  personage,  with  whom  he  had 
dined  once  a  fortnight  during  the  past 
year,  and  confined  himself  to  bowing  to 
Monsieur  Cardot;  but  the  mayor  and 
deputy  simply  looked  at  Pons  with  an 
Indignant  air,  and  did  not  return  his  salu- 
tation. 

"Go  and  ask  him  what  is  the  grievance 
that  they  all  have  against  me  ?"  said  poor 
Pons  to  Schmucke,  who  knew  all  the  de- 
tails of  the  catastrophe  which  had  over- 
taken Pons. 

'•'  Monsire,"  said  Schmucke  to  Cardot, 
astutely,  "my  friend  Bons  has  just  re- 
govered  from  an  illness,  and  no  doubt 
you  did  not  recognize  him." 

"  Oh,  perfectly,"  said  Cardot. 

"But  what  have  you  to  rebroage  him 
wid  ?  " 

"  Your  fi'iend  is  a  monster  of  ingrati- 
tude ;  and  that  he  still  Uves  is  only  an- 
other confirmation  of  the  proverb,  '  111 
weeds  grow  apace.'  The  world  is  quite 
justified  in  its  distrust  of  artists ;  they 
are  as  malignant  and  as  mischievous  as 
monkeys.  Your  friend  has  cndoavored 
to  disgrace  his  own  family,  and  to  blast 
the  reputation  of  a  young  lady  in  order 
to  revenge  a  harmless  joke  ;  I  am  resolved 
to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  him ;  I 
will  endeavor  to  forget  that  I  liave  ever 
know'n  him — that  such  a  person  exists. 
These  sentiments,  monsieur,  are  those  of 
all  the  members  of  my  family  and  his 
family,  and  of  those  persons  who  did 
Monsieur  Pons  the  honor  to  receive  him 
as  their  guest." 


90 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  But,  monsire,  you  are  a  reazonaple 
mann ;  and  iff  you  will  allow  me,  I  will 
eg'splain  de  madder — " 

"Remain  his  friend  if  you  have  the 
heart  to  do  so  ;  you  are  free  to  do  as 
you  please,  monsieur ;  but  do  not  go  be- 
yond that,  for  I  deem  it  m3'  duty  to  warn 
you  that  I  shall  extend  my  reprobation 
to  those  who  may  attempt  either  to  ex- 
cuse or  to  defend  him." 

"To  chuzdify  him  ?  "  said  Schmucke. 

"Yes;  for  his  conduct  is  as  unjustifi- 
able as  it  is  unqualiflable."  And  with 
this  repartee  the  deputy  for  the  Seine 
pursued  his  path,  unwilling-  to  listen  to 
a  single  syllable  further. 

When  Sclimucke  had  repeated  these 
savage  imprecations  to  poor  Pons,  the 
latter  said,  with  a  smile  :  "Well,  I  have 
already  the  two  powers  of  the  state 
against   me." 

"  Efferj'ding  is  againzt  us,"  groaned 
Schmucke.  "Let  us  go  away,  to  afoid 
meeting  any  oder  beasts." 

This  was  the  first  time  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  lamb-like  existence  that 
Schmucke  had  been  known  to  give  vent 
to  such  an  expression.  Never,  until  now, 
had  his  almost  God-like  mildness  been 
disturbed  ;  he  would  have  greeted  with  a 
smile — an  artless  smile — any  misfortune 
that  might  have  happened  to  himself; 
but  to  see  his  noble  Pons,  that  "  mute 
inglorious  "  Aristides,  that  meek,  unmur- 
muring man  of  genius,  that  soul  so  full  of 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,  that  jewel 
of  loving-kindness,  that  heart  of  purest 
gold,  maltreated,  roused  within  him  all 
the  indignation  of  Alceste,  and  made  him 
term  his  friend's  Amphitryons — beasts  ! 
In  a  man  of  his  pacific  disposition,  that 
excitation  was  equivalent  to  all  Orlando's 
rage.  With  wise  precaution,  Schmucke 
induced  Pons  to  turn  back  to  the  Boule- 
vard du  Temple,  whither  Pons  allowed 
himself  to  be  led  ;  for  he  was  now  in  the 
condition  of  a  combatant  who  has  ceased 
to  count  the  blows  that  he  receives.  As 
chance  would  have  it,  nothing  in  the 
world  was  to  be  wanting  to  the  combina- 
tion against  the  poor  musician.  The  so- 
cial avalanche  that  overwhelmed  him  was 
to  include  every  element  —  the  house  of 


peers,  the  chamber  of  deputies,  the  fam- 
ily, the  stranger,  the  strong,  the  weak, 
yea,  even  the  innocent ! 

As  Pons  was  on  his  way  homeward  on 
the  Boulevard  Poissonniere,  he  saw  com- 
ing toward  him  the  daughter  of  this 
ver^'  Monsieur  Cardot — a  young  lady  who 
had  suffered  enough  misfortunes  to  render 
her  indulgent.  She  had  made  a  faux- 
pas  that  had  been  kept  secret ;  and  had 
resigned  herself  to  be  her  husband's 
slave.  Among  all  the  ladies  who  pre- 
sided over  the  houses  at  which  Pons 
dined,  Madame  Berthier  was  the  onlj'  one 
whom  he  called  hy  her  Christian  name : 
he  addressed  her  as  Felicie  ;  and  at  times 
he  fancied  that  she  understood  him.  This 
gentle  creature  seemed  annoyed  at  meet- 
ing her  cousin  Pons — for,  as  a  cousin, 
Pons  was  treated,  in  spite  of  the  absence 
of  all  relationship  between  him  and  the 
family  of  his  cousin's  second  wife  —  but 
being  unable  to  avoid  him,  Felicie  Ber- 
thier stopped  and  confronted  the  dying- 
man. 

"  I  did  not  think  that  you  were  wicked, 
cousin,"  said  Felicie;  "but  if  only  one 
quarter  of  what  I  hear  said  about  you  be 
true,  you  must  be  thoroughly  false.  Oh  ! 
do  not  attempt  to  justify  yourself,"  added 
she,  with  emphasis,  observing  Pons's  gest- 
ure ;  "  it  would  be  useless  for  two  reasons; 
fii-st,  because  I  have  forfeited  the  right  to 
condemn,  to  judge,  or  to  accuse  an.y  one, 
knowing,  as  I  do,  from  my  own  case,  that 
those  who  seem  to  be  most  completely  in 
the  wrong  may  have  excuses  to  offer  ;  and 
secondly,  because  your  explanations  would 
be  unavailing.  Monsieur  Berthier,  who 
drew  up  the  contract  of  marriage  between 
Mademoiselle  de  Marville  and  Viscount 
Popinot,  is  so  indignant  with  you  that  if 
he  knew  that  I  have  spoken  even  a  single 
word  to  you,  that  I  have  addressed  you 
even  for  the  last  time,  he  would  certainly 
scold  me.     Everj'body  is  against  you." 

"So  I  perceive,  madame,"  replied  the 
poor  musician  in  a  voice  broken  by  emo- 
tion. Then  bowing  respectfully  to  the 
notary's  wife,  he  weariedly  resumed  his 
joumieyto  the  Rue  de  Normandie,  leaning 
so  heavily  upon  Schmucke's  arm  that  the 
old  German  could  not  fail  to  feel  that  his 


COUSIN    PONS. 


91 


friend  was  making  a  brave  attempt  to 
bear  up  against  physical  exhaustion. 
This  third  encounter  was,  as  it  were,  a 
verdict  pronounced  hy  the  Lamb  that  re- 
poses at  the  feet  of  God  :  the  wrath  of 
this  angel  of  tlie  poor — this  symbol  of  tlie 
peoples — is  the  final  utterance  of  Heaven  ! 
After  this  the  two  friends  reached  home 
without  exchanging  a  single  word.  There 
are  certain  critical  occasions  in  life  when 
all  that  we  can  bear  is  to  feel  that  our 
friend  is  near  us.  Spolcen  consolation 
serves  on\y  to  iri-itate  the  wound  b3^  ex- 
posing its  depth.  The  old  pianist  pos- 
sessed, as  3'ou  may  see,  the  genius  of 
friendsliip ;  the  delicacy  of  those  who, 
having  suffered  much,  well  know  the 
mood  of  those  who  suffer. 

It  was  decreed  that  this  should  be  the 
last  walk  that  the  worthy  Pons  should 
ever  take.  His  original  malady  was  im- 
mediately succeeded  b^-  another.  Pons's 
temperament  was  of  that  kind  which  is 
called  sanguino-bilious  :  the  bile  now 
passed  into  his  blood ;  he  was  attacked 
by  a  violent  inflammation  of  the  liver. 
These  two  successive  maladies  being  the 
only  ailments  from  which  Pons  had  ever 
suffered,  he  knew  no  doctor ;  so  the  feel- 
ing and  devoted  Madame  Cibot  hit  upon 
an  idea  which  in  any  case  would  have 
been  excellent,  and  was,  in  its  incipience, 
even  motherly  :  she  called  in  the  doctor 
of  the  district. 

There  is  in  every  district  in  Paris  a 
doctor  whose  name  and  residence  are 
known  to  the  poor,  to  the  small  shop- 
keepers, and  to  the  porters  of  the  vicinity 
only  ;  and  who  is,  therefore,  called  the 
district  doctor.  This  doctor,  who  acts 
as  accoucheur  and  blood-letter,  is  the 
"servant  of  all  work"  of  the  medical 
profession.  The  district  doctor,  who  can- 
not choose  but  be  good  to  the  poor,  and 
has,  by  dint  of  long  practice,  acquired 
considerable  skill  in  his  vocation,  is  gen- 
ei-ally  liked.  Dr.  Poulain,  having  been 
introduced  to  the  sick-room  bj''  Madame 
Cibot  and  recognized  by  Schmucke,  lent 
a  careless  ear  to  the  complaints  of  the 
old  musician  who  throughout  the  night 
had  been  scratching  his  skin,  now  com- 
pletely callous.     The  state   of  the  eyes, 


which  were  surrounded  by  yellow  circles, 
corresponded  with  this  symptom. 

"You  have  experienced  some  violent 
grief  within  the  last  two  days,  have  you 
not?  "  said  the  doctor  to  his  patient. 

"Alas,  yes,"  replied  Pons. 

"  You  are  suffering  from  the  disor- 
der which  that  gentleman  so  narrowly 
escaped,"  said  Poulain,  pointing  to 
Schmucke.  "1  mean  the  jaundice.  But 
it  will  be  a  mere  trifle,"  he  added,  as 
he  proceeded  to  write  a  prescription. 
Notwithstanding  this  last  most  reassur- 
ing phrase,  the  doctor  had  cast  at  his 
patient  one  of  those  Hippocratean  glances 
in  which  a  sentence  of  death  (veiled 
though  it  may  be  by  conventional  S3'm- 
pathy)  may  always  be  read  by  the  eyes 
of  those  who  are  interested  in  knowing 
the  truth.  Madame  Cibot,  accordinglj', 
who  scrutinized  the  doctor's  glance  with 
all  the  keen  penetration  of  a  spy,  was 
not  deceived  by  the  tone  in  which  his 
I'emark  was  uttered,  nor  by  the  hypo- 
critical mask  that  he  assumed ;  she 
therefore  followed  Dr.  Poulain  when  he 
went  away,  and  when  they  had  reached 
the  landing,  inquired  : 

"  Do  you  really  think  it  will  be  a  mere 
trifle  ?  " 

"  My  dear  Madame  Cibot,  your  patient 
is  a  dead  man  ;  not  on  account  of  the  in- 
vasion of  the  bile  into  the  blood,  but  on 
account  of  his  moral  prostration.  How- 
ever, with  a  great  deal  of  care,  the  patient 
maj'  yet  recover ;  he  should  be  got  awaj' 
from  here  and  taken  for  a  trip — " 

"And  where  is  the  money  to  come 
from?"  inquired  the  portress.  "All  he 
has  is  his  berth;  and  his  friend  lives 
upon  a  small  allowance  from  certain 
grand  ladies  to  whom  he's  been  of  some 
service,  according  to  his  own  account — 
some  very  charitable  ladies.  It's  just 
two  children  as  I've  been  looking  after 
these  nine  years." 

"  My  life  is  spent  in  attending  people 
who  die  —  not  from  their  illnesses,  but 
from  that  great  and  incurable  disease, 
the  want  of  money.  In  how  many  a 
garret  am  I  compelled,  far  from  exact- 
ing payment  for  my  visit,  to  leave  half 
a  crown  upon  the  chimney-piece  ! " 


92 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"Poor,  dear  Monsieur  Poulain  !  "  ex- 
claimed Madame  Cibot.  "  Ah,  if  you 
only  had  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a 
year,  like  certain  screws  in  this  quarter, 
wlio  n'are  just  so  many  devils  let  loose 
from  hell,  you'd  he  the  ag'ent  of  the  good 
God  here  n'on  earth  !  " 

Tlie  doctor,  who,  thanks  to  the  good 
will  of  those  worthy  g-entlemen  the  poi*- 
ters  of  his  arrondissement,  had  succeeded 
in  getting  together  a  little  connection 
which  brought  him  barely  enough  to  live 
upon,  here  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  and 
thanked  Madame  Cibot  by  a  grimace 
worthy  of  Tartuffe  himself. 

"You  say,  then,  my  dear  Monsieur 
Poulain,  that  with  great  care  our  dear 
patient  may  pull  round  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  unless  the  inner  man  has  sus- 
tained too  severe  a  shock  from  the  grief 
he  has  undergone." 

"  Poor  man  !  who  could  have  caused 
him  grief?  He's  a  brave  fellow,  who 
n'hasn't  his  like  on  earth,  except  his 
friend.  Monsieur  Schmucke !  I'll  find 
n'out  wliat  has  brought  him  to  this 
pass ;  and  I  warrant  /  gives  a  good 
dressing  to  the  folks  who've  been  and 
riled  my  gentleman.'' 

"  Listen  to  me,  my  dear  Madame  Ci- 
bot," said  the  doctor,  who  was  now 
standing  on  the  step  of  the  carriage- 
gate;  "one  of  the  principal  features  of 
the  disease  from  which  your  '  gentleman  ' 
is  suffei'ing  is  a  constant  irritability  over 
trifles  ;  and  as  it  is  not  probable  that  he 
can  call  in  a  nurse,  jou  will  have  to  look 
after  him  yourself.    So  you  understand  ?  " 

"  Ish  it  about  Moshieur  Ponsh  sliat  you 
are  shpeaking?  "  asked  the  dealer  in  old 
iron,  who  was  engaged  in  smoking-  his 
pipe,  and  now,  as  he  uttered  the  question, 
rose  from  the  stone  on  which  he  was  sit- 
ting to  join  in  the  conversation  of  the 
portress  and  the  doctor. 

"Yes,  Daddj'  Remonencq,"  replied 
Madame  Cibot  to  the  Auvergnat. 

"  Well,  shen  !  he  ish  ricslier  than  Mo- 
shieur Monishtrol,  and  slie  lordsh  of  she 
curioshitiesh.  I  knowsh  enough  about 
art  to  tell  you  shat  she  dear  man  hash 
treasshures  ! " 

"WeU,"   said  Madame   Cibot    to  Re- 


monencq, "  I  thought  3'ou  was  a-laugh- 
ing  at  me  the  other  day  when  1  showed 
you  all  those  antiqualities,  while  my 
gentlemen  were  out." 

At  Paris,  where  the  very  paving-stones 
have  ears,  where  ever^^  door  has  a  tongue, 
where  the  window-bars  have  eyes,  nothing 
is  more  dangerous  than  a  conversation  in 
fi'ont  of  a  carriage-gate.  The  parting 
words  there  uttered,  which  are  to  the 
preceding  conversation  what  the  post- 
scrijot  is  to  a  letter,  are  sure  to  contain 
avowals  that  are  fraught  with  danger 
alike  to  those  who  make,  and  to  those 
who  overhear  them. 

A  single  illustration  of  this  truth  may 
serve  to  corroborate  that  which  this  his- 
tory i^resents. 


XII. 


"GOLD    IS    A    CHIMERA." — (WORDS    BY    M. 
SCRIBE,  MUSIC  BY  MEYERBEER,  SCEN- 
ERY BY  REMONENCQ.) 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  hair-dress- 
ers of-  the  imperial  epoch — an  epoch  dur- 
ing- which  men  devoted  a  great  deal  of 
attention  to  the  hair  and  its  arrangement 
— was  one  day  leaving  a  certain  house 
wherein  he  had  just  been  dressing  the 
hair  of  a  pretty  woman,  and  of  which  all 
the  principal  occupants  gave  him  their 
support.  Among  these  there  was  a  cer- 
tain old  bachelor,  armed  with  a — house- 
keeper who  hated  the  lawful  heirs  of  her 
master.  A  consultation  of  the  most  fa- 
mous physicians  of  the  day— who  were 
not  as  yet  called  the  princes  of  the  sci- 
ence— had  just  been  held  over  the  case  of 
the  ci-devant  young  man  who  was  sei-i- 
ously  ill.  It  so  hapiDened  that  the  doctors 
and  the  hair-dresser  left  the  house  at  the 
very  same  moment ;  and  that  the  doctors, 
halting  on  the  step  of  the  carriage-gate, 
began  to  chatter  to  each  other,  as  thej'^ 
do  when  the  consultation  farce  is  over; 
that  is  to  say,  in  all  scientific  sincerity 
and  truth.  "He  is  a  dead  man,"  said 
Dr.  Haudry.  "Miracles  apart,  he  has 
not  a  month  to  live,"  I'eplied  Desplein. 
These  words  the  barber  overheard. 


COUSLV    POiYS. 


93 


Now  this  barber,  like  all  other  barbers, 
kept  a  good  understanding  with  the  ser- 
vants of  his  employers.  Spurred  by  an 
exorbitant  desire  to  grow  rich,  he  imme- 
diately returns  to  the  apartments  of  the 
ci-devant  young  man,  and  promises  the 
servant-mistress  a  handsome  premium  if 
she  can  persuade  her  master  to  sink  a 
large  part  of  his  fortune  in  an  annuity. 
Now  the  moribund  old  bachelor,  who  was 
fifty-six  according  to  the  calendar,  but 
twice  that  age,  regard  being  had  to  his 
amorous  campaigns,  possessed,  among 
other  propertj',  a  magnificent  mansion 
situated  in  the  Rue  Richelieu,  and  then 
worth  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
francs.  This  mansion — the  object  of  the 
barber's  greed — was  sold  to  him  in  con- 
sideration of  an  annuity  of  thirtj'  thou- 
sand francs. 

The  transaction  in  question  occurred  in 
1806.  In  1846  the  barber— who  has  now 
retired  and  is  seventy  yeai's  of  age — is 
still  paying  the  annuity.  Now,  seeing 
that  the  ci-devant  young  man  is  at  pres- 
ent ninet.y-six,  is  in  his  dotage,  and  has 
married  his  Madame  Everard,  he  may  ve- 
main  upon  his  legs  a  long  time  yet ;  and 
since  the  barber  gave  something- like  thirty 
thousand  francs  to  the  aforesaid  lad 3%  the 
house  has  stood  him  in  more  than  a  mil- 
lion francs  ;  but  it  is  now  worth  from  eight 
to  nine  himdred  thousand  francs. 

Remonencq,  like  this  barber,  had  over- 
heard the  last  words  addressed  to  Pons 
by  Brunner  upon  the  gate-step  on  the  daj' 
when  that  phenLx  of  suitors  had  his  first 
interview  with  Cecile ;  and  these  last 
words  had  filled  the  Auvei-gnat  with  a 
desire  to  penetrate  into  the  Pons  Muse- 
um. Being  on  good  terms  with  the  Cibots, 
it  was  not  long  ere  he  was  introduced  into 
the  rooms  of  the  two  friends  during  their 
absence.  Dazzled  by  so  much  wealth, 
Remonencq  saw  that  there  was  '"'a  stroke 
of  business  to  be  done  " — which  is  dealer's 
slang  for  "  a  fortune  to  be  stolen  " — and 
he  had  been  pondering  over  the  matter 
for  five  or  six  days. 

"I  am  sho  much  in  earnesht,"  said  he 
to  Madame  Cibot  and  Dr.  Poulain,  "zhat 
we  will  talk  she  matter  over,  and  if  zish 
good  shentlemansh  wansh  an  annuishy  of 


fifty  thousandsh  francshs,  I  will  give  you 
a  hamper  of  ordinary  winesh,  if  you 
will—" 

"  What  can  you  be  thinking  about  ?  " 
said  the  doctor  to  Remonencq.  "  An  an- 
nuitj'  of  fifty  thousand  francs  !  But  if 
the  worthy  man  is  so  rich  and  is  attended 
bj'  me  and  nursed  by  Madame  Cibot,  why, 
he  may  recover — for  liver  complaints  are 
the  concomitant  drawbacks  of  very  strong 
constitutions — " 

"Did  I  shay  fifty?  Why  a  shentle- 
mansh— zhare  on  zhe  very  shtep  of  your 
gate — oft'ered  him  sheven  hundred  shou- 
sand  francsh,  and  for  zhe  pictui-esh  onlj' 
— fouchtra  ! " 

When  Madame  Cibot  heard  this  declara- 
tion of  Remonencq's  she  looked  at  Dr. 
Poulain  with  a  very  strange  expression 
on  her  face  :  the  devil  was  kindling  a  sin- 
ister flame  in  those  orange-colored  eyes 
of  hers. 

"  Come,  don't  let's  listen  to  such  idle 
tales,"  resumed  the  doctor,  who  was  very 
glad  to  learn  that  his  patient  was  abler  to 
pay  him  for  all  the  visits  he  was  about 
to  make. 

"  Monsheur  le  docteure,  if  my  dear 
Madame  Shibot,  shinsh  zhe  shentlemans 
ish  in  bed,  will  allow  me  to  bring  my 
exshpert,  I  am  sure  to  find  zhe  money  in 
two  houi'sh'  time,  even  if  it  ish  a  question 
of  sheven  hundred  shousand  francsh — " 

"All  right,  my  friend,"  replied  the  doc- 
tor. "Come,  Madame  Cibot,  take  good 
care  not  to  exasperate  the  patient;  you 
must  put  on  your  armor  of  patience ;  for 
everj'thing  will  irritate  and  weary  him — 
even  your  attentions.  You  must  be  pre- 
pared to  find  him  grumbling  at  every- 
thing." 

"  He  will  be  very  hard  to  please  if  he 
does,"  said  the  portress. 

"Now,  mark  well  what  I  say," pursued 
the  doctor,  authoritatively.  "  The  life  of 
Monsieur  Pons  is  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  have  the  care  of  him.  So  I  shaU 
come  to  see  him  perhaps  twice  a  day ;  I 
shall  commence  my  rounds  with  him — " 

The  doctor  had  suddenly  passed  from 
the  supreme  inditTerence  with  which  he 
regarded  the  fate  of  his  pauper  patients 
to  the  most  tender  solicitude.     The  ear- 


94 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


nestness  of  the  speculator  had  impressed 
him  with  the  idea  that  this  fortune  mig-ht 
be  a  reality. 

"He  shall  be  waited  on  like  a  king," 
replied  Madame  Cibot,  with  factitious  en- 
thusiasm. 

The  portress  waited  until  the  doctor 
had  turned  into  the  Rue  Chariot  ere  she 
resumed  the  conversation  with  Remo- 
nencq.  The  old-iron  dealer  meanwhile 
was  finishing-  his  pipe,  with  his  back  lean- 
ing against  the  jamb  of  his  shop-door. 
He  had  not  taken  up  this  position  unde- 
signedly. He  wanted  the  portress  to 
come  to  him. 

This  shop,  which  had  formerly  been 
used  as  a  cafe,  had  undergone  no  altera- 
tion since  the  Auvergnat  had  taken  it  on 
lease.  The  words  CAFE  DE  NORMAN- 
DIE  were  still  legible  on  the  long  entab- 
lature which  surmounts  the  glass  front- 
age of  all  modern  shops.  The  Auvergnat 
iad  got  some  house-decorator's  appren- 
tice to  paint  (gratis,  no  doubt)  the  words: 
Bemonencq,  ferrailleur,  achete  les  mar- 
chandises  d'occasion,  in  the  space  left 
beneath  the  words  CAFE  DE  NORMAN- 
DIE.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  mir- 
rors, tables,  stools,  what-nots,  and  all 
the  furniture  of  the  Cafe  de  Normandie 
had  been  sold.  Remonencq  had  hired,  at 
an  outlay  of  six  hundred  francs,  the  bare 
shop,  the  back  parlor,  the  kitchen,  and, 
on  the  mezzanine  floor,  a  single  room 
that  had  once  been  the  bedroom  of  the 
head -waiter  at  the  cafe.  The  other 
rooms  belonging  to  the  cafe  now  formed 
part  of  a  separate  letting.  The  only  ves- 
tiges of  the  original  splendor  of  the  cafe 
were  a  plain  light-green  paper  in  the 
shop,  and  the  strong  iron  bars  of  the 
shop-front  with  their  bolts. 

When  Remonencq  first  came  to  the 
place  in  1831,  after  the  Revolution  of 
July,  he  started  with  a  display  of  cracked 
bells,  chipped  dishes,  old  iron,  superan- 
nuated scales,  and  ancient  weights,  ren- 
dered obsolete  by  the  law  establishing 
new  weights  and  measures — a  law  which 
only  the  state  itself  infringes ;  for  it  sanc- 
tions the  circulation  of  one-sou  and  two- 
sou  pieces  coined  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XVI.     Then  this  Auvergnat,  of  five  Au- 


vergnat power,  began  to  purchase  kitchen 
ranges,  old  picture-frames,  old  bits  of 
copper  and  chipped  porcelain.  Gradual- 
ly, by  dint  of  filling  and  emptying  and 
filling  and  emptying  again,  the  shop 
began  to  bear  a  close  resemblance  to 
Nicolet's  farces :  the  character  of  its 
contents  improved. 

The  wonderful  and  infallible  scheme 
adopted  hy  the  dealer  in  old  iron — a 
scheme  whose  results  are  patent  to  the 
ej^es  of  any  lounger  sufficiently  philo- 
sophical to  note  the  arithmetical  pro- 
gression in  value  of  the  wares  with  which 
these  intelligent  shops  are  stocked — was 
this ;  tin,  argand  lamps  and  earthen- 
ware give  place  to  picture-frames  and 
copper ;  these  again  make  way  for  porce- 
lain ;  then,  speedily,  the  shop,  that  for  a 
brief  space  figured  as  a  daubeum,  is  met- 
amorphosed into  a  museum.  At  last, 
some  fme  day  the  grimy  windows  are 
cleaned,  the  interior  of  the  shop  is  reno- 
vated, the  Auvergnat  doffs  his  velvet  and 
his  vests,  and  sports  a  frock-coat !  There 
is  he  to  be  seen,  looking  like  a  dragon 
guarding  his  treasure.  He  is  surrounded 
by  masterpieces ;  he  has  developed  into  a 
subtle  connoisseur ;  he  has  decupled  his 
capital ;  he  is  not  to  be  taken  in  by  any 
artifice ;  he  is  perfectly  familiar  with  all 
the  tricks  of  the  ti-ade.  There  sits  the 
monster  like  some  old  dowager  surrounded 
by  a  bevy  of  pretty  girls,  whom  she  is 
offering  to  the  highest  bidder  in  the 
matrimonial  market  !  The  beauties,  the 
miracles  of  art,  make  no  impression  what- 
ever on  this  man,  who  is,  at  the  same 
time,  coarse  and  subtle ;  who  bullies  the 
ignorant  while  calculating  what  he  can 
make  out  of  them.  Turned  comedian,  he 
affects  a  passion  for  his  pictures  and  mar- 
quetries, or  pretends  to  be  poor,  or  in- 
vents fictitious  purchase  prices  and  olfers 
to  show  (imaginary)  sale  notes.  He  is 
a  very  Proteus  ;  in  the  course  of  one  brief 
hour  he  is  Jocrisse,  Janot,  Clown,  Mondor, 
Harpagon,  or  Nicodemus. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  j'ear 
after  his  installation,  Remonencq's  shop 
contained  some  valuable  time-pieces,  suits 
of  armor,  and  old  pictui-es,  which  were 
protected,  when  Remonencq  himself  was 


COUSIN    PONS. 


95 


away,  by  his  sister,  a  stout  ugly  woman, 
who,  in  answer  to  her  brother's  summons, 
had  traveled  from  Auverg-ne  on  foot.  This 
sister.  La  Remonencq  (a  sort  of  idiot,  with 
vacant  gaze,  and  dressed  like  a  Japanese 
idol),  never  abated  a  single  centime  of  the 
prices  fixed  by  her  brother.  She  attended 
to  the  household  duties  also,  and  solved 
the  apparently  insoluble  problem — how 
to  live  upon  the  fogs  of  the  Seine.  Re- 
monencq and  his  sister  subsisted  upon 
bread  and  herrings,  potato  peelings  and 
scraps  of  vegetables,  picked  up  from  the 
heaps  of  refuse  left  by  the  eating-house 
keepers  near  the  posts  outside  their  doors. 
Bread  included,  the  brother  and  sister 
lived  on  less  than  sixpence  a  day;  and  that 
sixpence  La  Remonencq  earned  with  her 
needle  and  spinning-wheel. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  business  of 
Remonencq,  who  had  first  come  to  Paris 
as  a  commissionaire,  and  from  1835  to 
1831  had  executed  the  commissions  of  the 
curiosity-dealers  of  the  Boulevard  Beau- 
marchais  and  the  coppersmiths  of  the  Rue 
de  Lappe.  And  such  is  the  normal  his- 
tor}^  of  many  a  dealer  in  curiosities.  The 
Jews,  the  men  of  Normand\',  of  Auvergne 
and  of  Savoy — four  distinct  races — have 
(one  and  all)  the  same  instincts,  and  adopt 
the  same  means  of  growing  rich.  To 
spend  nothing,  to  be  content  with  small 
profits,  and  to  pile  interest  on  profit — that 
is  their  charter ;  and  their  charter  is  more 
than  a  mere  name. 

Remonencq,  now  reconciled  with  his 
former  employer,  Monistrol,  whose  trade 
was  with  the  wholesale  dealers,  was  now 
accustomed  to  chiner — that  is  the  techni- 
cal word— in  the  precinct  of  Paris,  which, 
as  is  well  known,  comprises  an  area  of 
forty  leagues.  After  being  in  business  for 
fourteen  years  he  possessed  a  capital  of 
«ixty  thousand  francs,  besides  a  well- 
stocked  shop.  Having  no  chance  custom 
in  the  Rue  de  Normandie,  a  spot  to  which 
he  clung  on  account  of  the  lowness  of  his 
rent,  he  sold  his  wares  to  the  dealers,  con- 
tenting himself  with  moderate  profits.  All 
his  business  was  transacted  in  the  Au- 
vergne dialect,  known  by  the  name  of 
charabia.  Remonencq  indulged  in  a  day- 
dream !    His  day-dream  was — to  have  a 


shop  upon  the  boulevard.  He  wanted  to 
become  a  rich  curiositj'-dealer,  so  that  he 
might,  some  day,  sell  direct  to  the  ama- 
teurs. He  was,  moreover,  a  formidable 
man  of  business.  His  face  was  almost 
impenetrable;  for,  in  the  first  place,  it 
was  covered — in  consequence  of  his  being 
his  own  joumej-man — with  a  thick  coating 
composed  of  iron  filings  and  perspiration ; 
and,  in  the  second,  habitual  hard  work 
had  given  to  his  features  that  stoical  im- 
passiveness  which  distinguishes  the  vet- 
erans of  the  war  1799.  Physically,  Remo- 
nencq was  a  short,  thin  man,  whose  little, 
cold  blue  ej'es  were  placed  in  his  head  like 
those  of  a  pig,  and  betokened  the  concen- 
trated avarice  and  crafty  cunning  of  the 
Jew  without  that  superficial  humility 
which  conceals  his  profound  contempt  for 
the  Christian. 

The  relations  subsisting  between  the 
Cibots  and  the  Remonencqs  Tvere  those 
of  the  obliger  and  the  obliged.  Madame 
Cibot,  who  implicitly  believed  that  the 
two  Auvergnats  were  exceedingly'  poor, 
sold  them  the  leavings  of  Schmucke  and 
Cibot  at  prices  fabulously  low.  The  Re- 
monencqs paid  her  two  centimes  and  a 
half  for  a  pound  of  dry  crusts  and 
bread-crumbs,  one  centime  and  a  half 
for  a  porringer  full  of  potatoes,  and  so 
on  in  proportion.  The  wily  Remonencq 
was  never  supposed  to  do  any  business  on 
his  own  account :  he  always  pretended  that 
he  was  merely  Monistrol's  agent,  and  com- 
plained that  the  wealthj'  dealers  barely 
allowed  him  to  exist ;  so  the  Cibots  sin- 
cerely' pitied  the  Remonencqs.  After 
eleven  years'  wear,  the  velvet  jacket, 
velvet  waistcoat,  and  velvet  trousers  of 
the  Auvergnat  still  held  together;  but 
these  three  garments,  which  are  charac- 
teristic of  the  men  of  Auvergne,  were 
covered  with  patches,  inserted,  gratui- 
toush',  by  Cibot.  It  is  clear  that  all  the 
Jews  are  not  in  Israel. 

"■  Ai'en't  you  making  game  of  me,  Re- 
monencq?" said  the  portress.  "Is it  pos- 
sible as  Monsieur  Pons  can  have  so  large  a 
fortune  and  lead  the  life  he  leads  ?  Whj', 
he  hasn't  a  hundred  francs  about  him  !  " 

"  Amateursh  are  alwaysh  like  that," 
replied  Remonencq,  sententiously. 


96 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  So  yoii  reallj'  n'and  truly  believe  as 
my  g-entleman  has  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand francs'  worth  of — " 

"Yesh,  in  picturesh  alone  —  he  hash 
one,  which,  if  he  wanted  fifty  shousliand 
francshs  for  it,  I  would  find  shem,  if  I 
had  to  shtrangle  myshelf  for  shem.  You 
know  well  zhe  little  framesh  of  enameled 
copper  full  of  red  velvet  in  which  zhere 
are  portraitsh.  Well,  zhen,  zhe3'  are 
enamelsh  by  Pettitotte,  which  moncheir, 
zhe  minishter  of  zhe  Government,  who 
wash  a  drug'g'isht,  would  give  three 
shoushand  francshsh   apiecsh — " 

"There  are  thirty  of  them  in  the  two 
frames !  "  exclaimed  the  portress,  with 
dilating  eyes. 

"  Well  slien  judgosh  of  his  ti'eashure  !  " 

Madame  Cibot,  seized  with  vertigo, 
turned  right-about-face.  In  a  moment, 
the  idea  of  being  remembered  in  Pons's 
will,  of  being  placed  on  an  equal  footing 
with  all  the  servant-mistresses,  whose 
annuities  had  excited  so  much  cupidity 
throughout  the  Marais,  sprung  up  in  her 
mind.  Slie  pictured  herself  living-  in  one 
of  the  communes  on  the  outskirts  of  Paris; 
flaunting  it  in  a  villa ;  looking  after  her 
poultiy  and  her  garden ;  and  spending 
her  declining  years  in  regal  state  ;  she 
and  her  jjoor  Cibot,  who,  like  all  neglected 
and  uncomprehended  angels,  deserved  so 
much  happiness. 

In  the  abrupt  and  naive  right-about- 
face  movement  of  the  portress,  Remo- 
nencq  read  the  certain  success  of  his 
scheme.  The  principal  difficulty  to  be 
surmounted  by  the  chineur,  is  the  diffi- 
culty of  gaining  admission  to  the  houses 
containing  the  treasures  that  he  is  in 
search  of ;  for  the  chineur  is  a  man  who 
is  on  the  lookout  for  opportunities.  {Clii- 
neur  is  derived  from  the  verb  chiner=  to 
go  in  search  of  anything  that  may  turn 
up,  and  conclude  advantageous  bargains 
with  ignorant  owners.)  No  one  would 
credit  the  number  of  tiicks  a  la  Scapin, 
of  Sganarelle  dodges,  of  Dorine-like  al- 
Uirements  played  off  or  brought  to  bear 
by  the  cJiineur  in  order  to  effect  an  en- 
trance into  the  houses  of  the  gentry. 
They  are  genuine  comedies  fit  for 
the    stage,   and   their    basis    always    is. 


as  in  this  case,  the  rapacity  of  ser- 
vants. For  thirty  francs  in  money,  or 
money's  worth,  the  servant  will  bring 
about  a  bargain,  out  of  Avhich  the  chi- 
neur will  realize  a  profit  of  one  or  two 
thousand  francs.  The  history  of  the  ac- 
quisition of  such  and  such  a  service  of  old 
Sevres  {ptite  tendre)  would  exhibit  the 
chineur  surpassing  the  Congress  of  Mun- 
ster  in  diplomatic  artifice,  and  the  Con- 
ventions of  Nimeguen,  Utrecht,  Ryswick 
and  Vienna  in  the  exercise  of  intelligence. 
Then,  the  acting  of  the  chineur  is  much 
more  frank  than  that  of  the  diplomatist ; 
while,  for  probing  all  the  profoundest 
depths  of  self-interest,  the  former  has  at 
his  command  means  quite  as  effective  as 
those  that  ambassadors  are  at  so  much 
pains  to  invent  in  order  to  bring  about 
the  rupture  of  the  most  closely  cemented 
alliances. 

"  I  have  shtirred  up  Dame  Shibot  and 
no  mishtake,"  said  Remonencq  to  his  sis- 
ter, as  he  saw  her  resuming  her  seat  upon 
a  chair  which  had  parted  with  every  scrap 
of  its  original  straw  ;  "and  now  I  will  go 
and  conshult  zhe  only  pershon  A'iho  uiider- 
shtandsh  zhe  matter^our  Chew,  our  good 
Chew  who  lent  ush  money  at  only  fifteen 
per  shent ! " 

Remonencq  had  read  Madame  Cibot's 
inmost  thoucrhts.  With  women  of  her 
stamp  to  will  is  to  act.  They  shrink 
from  nothing  that  may  conduce  to  the 
success  of  their  plans ;  in  a  moment,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  they  pass  from 
the  strictest  probity  to  depravitj'  the 
most  profound.  Integrity,  moreover  (like 
all  our  other  qualities),  is  of  two  kinds : 
there  is  a  negative  integrity  and  a  posi- 
tive integritj'.  The  integrity  of  a  Mad- 
ame Cibot  is  of  the  negative  kind.:  such 
persons  are  upright  until  they  have  an 
oppox-tunit.y  of  becoming  rich.  Positive 
integrity  is  that  which  is  always  knee- 
deep  in  temptation,  and  never  succumbs  : 
such  is  the  integi'ity  of  the  cashier. 
Through  the  sluice  that  had  been  opened 
by  the  Belial-like  harangue  of  the  dealer 
in  old  iron,  a  flood  of  bad  designs  rushed 
into  the  brain  and  into  the  heart  of  this 
portress.  Mounting,  or  rather — to  use 
the  exact  word — flying,  from  the  lodge  to 


COUSIN    PONS. 


97 


the  apartments  of  her  "two  gentlemen," 
Dame  Cibot  made  her  appearance,  with 
a  hypocritical  expression  of  pity  on  her 
face,  at  the  threshold  of  the  room  in  which 
Pons  and  Schmucke  were  moaning:  in  con- 
cert. When  the  latter  saw  the  house- 
keeper come  in,  he  motioned  to  her  not 
to  breathe,  in  the  presence  of  the  sick 
man,  a  single  syllable  of  the  doctor's 
real  opinion  ;  for  the  friend,  the  excellent 
German,  had  re:Kl  the  expression  of  the 
doctor's  eye.  Madame  Cibot  replied  to 
Schmucke's  g-esture  by  a  motion  of  the 
head  that  was  meant  to  indicate  the  deep- 
est sorrow. 

"Well,  my  dear  sir,  and  how  do  you 
find  yourself  ?  "  inquired  the  dame. 

So  saying-,  the  portress  placed  herself 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  with  her  arms 
akimbo,  and  her  eyes  fixed  lovingly  upon 
the  invalid;  but,  oh!  what  golden  scin- 
tillations gleamed  in  those  orbs  !  To  the 
eye  of  an  observer,  the  glance  of  a  tiger 
could  not  have  been  more  terrible. 

"Oh!  I  am  verj''  bad!"  replied  poor 
Pons ;  '•  I  don't  feel  the  slightest  desire 
to  eat.  Oh !  the  world  !  the  world  !  " 
cried  he,  squeezing  the  hand  of  Schmucke, 
who,  seated  at  the  bed's  head,  was  hold- 
ing Pons's  hand  in  his,  and  doubtless  list- 
ening to  an  account  of  the  origin  of  Pons's 
illness. 

"'  Ah  I  my  dear  Schmucke,  how  much 
better  would  it  have  been  if  I  had  fol- 
lowed your  advice,  dined  here  every  day 
since  we  foregathered,  and  given  up  this 
society  which  is  now  crushing  me,  as  a 
dung-cart  crushes  an  egg — and  for  what 
reason  ? " 

"Come,  come,  my  dear  sir,  no  com- 
plaints," said  Madame  Cibot;  "the  doc- 
tor has  told  me  the  truth." 

Here  Schmucke  gave  a  tug  at  the  por- 
tress's gown. 

"Well!  you  may  get  over  it,  if  j-ou 
are  well  looked  after.  Make  your  mind 
easj' ;  you  have  a  good  friend  by  your 
side ;  and,  without  wishing  to  brag,  a 
woman  as'll  take  n'as  much  care  n'of 
you  as  a  mother  takes  of  her  first  baby. 
I  pulled  Cibot  through  an  illness,  when 
Monsieur  Poulaiu  had  given  him  up,  and 
had  thrown — as  the  saying-  is — the  sheet 
Bai^ac— D 


over  his  nose,  and  he  had  been  left  for 
dead.  Well,  you,  who  n'haven't  come  to 
that  pass  yet,  thank  God  ! — though  you 
n'are  bad  enough,  to  be  sure — j'ou  just 
trust  to  me;  I'll  pull  you  through,  witli- 
out  any  one's  help.  Now  do  be  quiet; 
don't  toss  .yourself  about  like  that."  So 
saying,  she  drew  the  bed-clothes  over  the 
hands  of  the  invalid.  "Come,  my  little 
man,"  pursued  she,  "  Monsieur  Schmucke 
and  me'll  pass  the  night  there,  at  your 
pillow.  You  will  be  better  cared  for  than 
a  prince,  n'and — besides — you  are  rich 
enouglr  not  to  stint  yourself  of  anything 
that  your  disorder  requires.  I've  come 
to  an  arrangement  with  Cibot,  which — 
poor  dear  man !  what  on  earth  would  he 
do  without  me  ? — well,  I've  made  him 
listen  to  reason,  and  we  n'are,  both  of 
us,  so  fond  of  you  that  he's  given  me 
leave  to  spend  the  night  here — and,  for  a 
man  hke  him,  that's  no  slight  sacrifice, 
look  you !  for  he  loves  me  now  as  much 
as  ever  he  did  the  first  day  we  were  mar- 
ried. I  don't  know  how  it  is;  it  must  be 
the  lodge ;  both  of  us  always  side  by  side  ! 
Now  don't  uncover  yourself  like  that," 
she  exclaimed,  dartmg  to  the  'head  of  the 
bed,  and  drawing  the  clothes  over  Pons's 
chest.  "If  3'ou  don't  behave  well  and  do 
whatever  Monsieur  Poulain  orders  —  for 
Monsieur  Poulain"s  the  very  image  of  the 
good  God  upon  earth,  do  you  see? — I'll 
have  nothing  more  to  do  with  you  :  you 
must  obej-  me." 

"Yes,  Montame  Zibod,  he  will  opey 
you,"  interposed  Schmucke;  "for  he 
wants  to  liff,  for  de  zake  of  his  goot 
friend  Schmucke,  I  warrant  him." 

"Above  all  things,  don't  irritate  j'our- 
self,"  said  Madame  Cibot;  "for  your 
disease  will  make  j'ou  n'irritable  enough 
in  all  conscience  without  your  making 
matters  wor§e.  God  sends  us  our  afflic- 
tions, my  dear  good  sir;  He  punishes  us 
for  our  faults  ;  you've  got  some  sweet 
little  faults  to  reproach  yourself  with,  no 
doubt !  "  (Here  the  sick  man  shook  his 
head.)  "  Oh,  come  !  come  I  you  must  have 
been  n"in  love  when  you  was  young ; 
you've  had  your  frolics;  perhaps  the 
fruit  of  your  passion  may  be  knocking 
about  somewhere  or  other  now,  without 


98 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


fire,  food  or  home — you  men  are  such 
monsters  !  one  day  all  love,  and  then — 
frist  !— all's  over — no  more  thought  for 
anj'thing- ;  no,  not  even  while  the  child's 
at  the  breast !  Alas,  for  us  poor  wo- 
men !  " 

"But  no  one,  except  Schmucke,  and 
my  poor  mother,  ever  loved  me,"  said 
poor  Pons,  disconsolately. 

"  Oh  !  come  now,  come  now,  you  ain't 
a  saint,  you  know  !  You  was  j'oung  once, 
and  you  must  have  been  n'a  vei'y  good- 
looking'  young  fellow  in  your  time.  When 
you  was  twenty — consideinng  how  good 
you  are — I  should  have  been  n'in  love 
with  you  myself  !  " 

"I  was  always  as  ugly  as  a  toad  !  " 
said  Pons,  in  sheer  despair. 

"  Oh  !  it's  your  modesty  as  makes  you 
say  that ;  for  I  must  say  you  n'have  that 
in  j'our  favor;  you  n'are  modest !  " 

"No,  no,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot ;  I 
tell  you  once  more,  I  was  always  ugly ; 
I  have  never  been  loved — " 

"  And  yon  want  to  make  me  believe 
that,  do  you  ?  "  said  the  portress.  "  You 
want  to  make  me  believe  at  this  time  of 
day,  that,  at  j'our  n'ag-e,  you  n'are  as 
spotless  as  the  pattern  girl  of  the  village  ! 
Tell  that  to  the  marines  !  You,  n'a  musi- 
cian !  a  theater  man  !  Whj%  if  a  wo- 
man were  to  tell  me  so,  I  wouldn't  believe 
her — that  I  wouldn't !  " 

"  Montame  Zibod  !  Montame  Zibod  !  you 
will  egzazberate  him,"  cried  Schmucke, 
seeing  that  Pons  was  twisting  and  wrig- 
gling about  in  his  bed  like  a  worm. 

"Hold  your  tongue,  you  n'also,"  cried 
Madame  Cibot.  "You  n'are  a  pair  of 
old  rakes.  Plain  as  you  may  be,  both 
of  you,  there's  no  lid  so  poor  but  finds 
its  pot !  as  the  proverb  says.  Cibot 
managed  to  find  his  way  into  the  good 
graces  of  one  of  the  prettiest  oyster-girls 
in  Paris — you  n'are  a  deal  better-looking 
than  Cibot — and  then  you  n'are  such  a 
good  soul:  come  now,  j'ou've  plaj^ed  j'our 
little  pranks  in  your  time,  and  God  is 
punishing  you  for  forsaking  your  children, 
like  Abraham — " 

Here  the  exhausted  sufferer  found 
strength  to  make  another  gesture  of 
dissent. 


"  But  make  your  mind  easy ;  you  may 
Uve  as  long  as  Methuselah,  for  all  that." 

"Oh  !  leave  me  alone,  leave  me  alone  !" 
cried  Pons.  '•  I  have  never  known  what 
it  is  to  be  loved.  I  never  had  a  child  ; 
I  am  alone  in  the  world." 

"  Really  and  truly,  now  ?  "  said  the 
portress ;  "  for  you  are  so  kind-hearted 
that  the  women — who  love  a  kind  heart, 
mind  you,  that's  what  wins  'em — well,  it 
did  seem  to  me  impossible  that  in  your 
best  days — " 

"Take  her  away,"  whispered  Pons  to 
Schmucke  ;   "  she  jars  my  nerves  !  " 

"Ah  !  well  then.  Monsieur  Schmucke 
has  some  children,  I'll  be  bound,  you 
n'are  all  alike,  you  old  bachelors — " 

"  I!  "  cried  Schmucke,  springing  to  his 
feet,  "  J.'— why— " 

"  What,  do  you  mean  to  say  that  j'ou 
also  have  got  neither  kith  nor  kin  ?  W^hy. 
3'ou  two  must  have  come  into  the  world 
just  like  a  couple  of  mushrooms." 

"Come  now,  come  along  with  me," 
replied  Schmucke;  and,  suiting  the  action 
to  the  word,  he  heroicallj'  put  his  arm 
round  Madame  Cibot's  waist,  and,  heed- 
less of  her  cries,  walked  her  off  into  the 
salon. 


XHI. 


A  TREATISE   ON  THE   OCCITLT   SCIENCES. 

"  What,  would  you  take  advantage  of 
a  poor  woman,  at  you?-  time  of  life  ?  ' ' 
cried  Madame  Cibot,  struggling  in 
Schmucke's   arms. 

"Don't  shout!"  said  Schmucke. 

"  You,  the  best  of  the  two  !  "  continued 
Madarne  Cibot.  "  Ah  !  I  did  wrong  to 
talk  aloout  love  to  two  n'old  men  who 
have  never  been  n'in  love,"  she  cried, 
catching  the  glare  of  anger  in  Schmucke's 
eyes.  ' '  To  the  rescue  !  To  the  rescue  ! 
I'm  being  carried  off  !  " 

"You  are  a  vool,"  said  the  German. 
"  Come,  now,  dell  me  what  did  de  doctor 
zay  ?  " 

"  You  treat  me  in  this  brutal  fashion," 
said  Dame  Cibot,  weeping,  but  restored 
to  liberty,  "'  me  as  would  go  through  fire 


COUSIN    PONS. 


99 


and  water  to  serve  you  two  gentlemen  ! 
Ah,  well !  They  say  that  we  come  to 
know  what  men  are  by  n'experience — 
liow  true  that  is  !  My  poor  Cibot  would 
never  serve  me  in  this  fashion.  And  me 
too  a-treating-  you  as  if  you  was  my  own 
children ;  for  I've  no  children  of  my  own, 
and  it  was  onlj'  yesterday,  as  I  was  a-say- 
ing'  to  Cibot :  'My  friend,  God  knew  well 
what  He  was  about  in  denying  us  chil- 
dren, for  I've  two  children  up  there.' 
There  now,  by  the  holy  cross  of  God, 
upon  my  mother's  soul,  those  were  my 
very  words — " 

"Yes,  yes,  but  what  did  the  doctor 
say  ?  "  persisted  Schmucke,  furiously ; 
and,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he 
stamped  his  foot. 

"Oh!"  replied  Madame  Cibot,  draw- 
ing Schmucke  into  the  dining-room,  "he 
said  that  our  dearly  beloved  duck  of  a 
love  of  an  n'invalid  would  be  in  great 
danger  of  dying  unless  he  was  well 
nursed  ;  but  I'm  here,  in  spite  of  j'our 
brutality — for  brutal  you  n'are — and  so  I 
tell  you,  you,  whom  I  took  to  be  so  gen- 
tle. So  that's  your  disposition,  is  it  ? 
You'd  take  advantage  of  a  woman,  at 
your  time  of  life,  would  you,  you  big 
rascal  ?  " 

"7  a  rasgal  ?  Don't  j'ou  know  dat  I 
ioffe  no  one  put  Bons  ?  " 

"  Well  and  good  ;  then  you'll  leave  me 
alone,  won't  j'ou  ?  "  said  the  dame,  smil- 
ing at  Schmucke.  "You'd  better,  for 
Cibot  would  break  all  the  bones  in  an\' 
one's  hody  as  tried  to  take  liberties  with 
me." 

"  Nurse  Bons  well,  m^'  leetle  Montame 
Zibod,"  returned  Schmucke,  trying  to 
get  hold  of  Madame  Cibot's  hand. 

"Ah  !  you  would,  would  you,  again  ?  " 

"  Now  lizzen  to  me ;  all  dat  I  have 
shall  bo  3'ours,  if  we  zave  him." 

"Very  well,  I'm  going  to  the  apothe- 
cary's to  get  what's  wanted — for  look'ee 
here,  sir,  this  illness'll  cost  money ;  and 
how  n'are  you  going  to  manage  ?  " 

"  I  vill  vork  ;  I  zhould  like  Bons  to  be 
nursed  like  a  prinze." 

"  And  so  he  shall,  my  dear  Monsieur 
Schmucke;  and,  look  j-ou,  don't  worry 
yourself  about  anything ;    Cibot  and  I 


have  got  two  thousand  francs  laid  by ; 
you're  welcome  to  them ;  I  have  been 
spending  money  of  my  own  on  you  two 
for  a  long  time  past — there  !  " 

"  Egzellent  woman  !  "  cried  Schmucke, 
wiping  his  eyes ;  "  what  a  heart  she 
has  !  " 

"  Dry  those  tears,  which  do  me  proud, 
for  that  is  my  recompense,"  said  Dame 
Cibot,  melodramatically.  "  I  am  the 
most  disinterested  creature  in  the  world  ; 
but  don't  \e  go  into  the  room  with  tears 
in  your  eyes  ;  for  that  would  make  Mon- 
sieur Pons  believe  that  he's  worse  nor  he 
really  is." 

Schmucke,  who  was  touched  by  this 
proof  of  delicacy,  now  at  last  succeeded 
in  getting  hold  of  Madame  Cibot's  hand, 
and  wrung  it. 

"'  Spare  me  !  "  said  the  quondam  oyster- 
girl,  with  a  tender  glance  at  Schmucke. 

"Bons,"  said  the  worthy  German, 
when  he  had  regained  the  bedroom, 
"Montame  Zibod  is  eln  angel;  she  is  a 
dalkative  angel,  I  admid  ;  but  still  she  Ls 
ein  angel." 

"You  think  so,  do  3'ou  ? — I  have  grown 
suspicious,  this  last  month,"  replied  the 
invalid,  shaking  his  head.  "After  so 
many  mishaps  as  I  have  had,  one  ceases 
to  believe,  except  in  God  and  you  !  " 

"  Ged  well,  and  we  will  all  tree  liff  like 
gings,"  said  Schmucke. 

"  Cibot,"  said  the  portress  to  her  hus- 
band, as,  panting  for  breath,  she  entered 
the  lodge.  "Ah  !  my  friend,  our  fortune 
is  made.  My  two  gentlemen  have  no 
heirs,  no  love-children,  no  nothing  ;  what 
do  you  say  to  that  ?  Oh!  I'll  go  to  Mad- 
ame Fontaine's  and  have  my  fortune  told; 
so  as  we  may  know  what  our  income  will 
be!" 

"Wife,"  said  the  httle  tailor,  "it's  ill 
waiting  for  a  dead  man's  shoes." 

"  Ah  I  you  want  to  torment  me,  do 
you?"  said  the  dame,  giving  Cibot  a 
friendly  tap.  "I  know's  what  I  know! 
Monsieur  Poulain  has  given  Monsieur 
Pons  up  !  and  we  shall  be  rich  ;  my  name 
will  be  mentioned  in  the  will ;  I'll  take 
my  oath  of  it.  Ply  j-our  needle,  and  look 
after  your  lodge — you  won't  have  to  do 
that    sort    of    work  very  much  longer ! 


100 


THE    HUMAN'    COMEDY, 


We'll  retire  into  the  country  ;  we'll  go 
and  live  at  Batignolles.  N'a  nice  house, 
n'a  nice  garden,  as  you'll  amuse  yourself 
by  looking  after ;  n'I'll  have  a  servant  to 
wait  upon  me  !  " 

"Well,  neighbor,  and  how  are  shings 
going  on  up  yonder?"  inquired  Remonencq. 
"  Do  you  know  what  zhe  collection  ish 
worth?" 

"  No,  no,  not  yet.  I  don't  go  that  way 
to  work,  my  good  fellow.  I  began  by 
finding  out  more  n 'important  things  than 
that—" 

"More  important  shings  shan  shat?" 
ejaculated  Remonencq.  "  What  can  be 
more  important  shan  shat  ?  " 

"Come,  come,  my  imp,  leave  me  to 
steer  my  own  boat,"  said  the  portress, 
authoritativel3\ 

"  But  sho  mush  per  shent  on  this  sheven 
hundred  shousand  francsh,  and  you  would 
have  enough  to  keep  you  in  idlenessh  for 
zhe  resht  of  j^ou  daj'sh  !  " 

"  Make  ^-our  mind  easy.  Daddy  Remo- 
nencq; when  it  is  necessary  to  know  what 
all  the  things  the  old  fellow  has  got  to- 
gether are  worth,  we  will  see — " 

The  portress,  after  having  gone  to  the 
druggist's  to  get  tlie  medicine  ordered  by 
Doctor  Poulain,  put  off  her  consultation 
with  Madame  Fontaine  until  the  morrow, 
thinking  that  she  would  find  the  faculties 
of  the  oracles  fresher  and  brighter  if  she 
paid  her  visit  the  first  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing before  any  one  else  was  there — for 
there  is  often  quite  a  crowd  of  people  at 
Madame  Fontaine's. 

After  having  been,  during  a  period  of 
forty  years,  the  rival  of  the  celebrated 
Mademoiselle  Lenormand,  whom  she  sur- 
vived, Madame  Fontaine  was  now  the 
oracle  of  the  Marais.  It  is  not  easy  to 
conceive  what  the  fortune-teller  is  to  the 
lower  classes  of  Paris,  or  how  vast  is  the 
influence  she  exercises  over  the  conduct 
of  the  uneducated  ;  for  cooks,  portresses, 
workingmen,  all  those  denizens  of  the 
French  metropolis  who  live  upon  hope, 
are  in  the  habit  of  consulting  those  privi- 
leged beings  who  possess  the  strange  and 
unexplained  power  of  reading  the  future. 
Faith  in  the  occult  sciences  is  much  more 
widely  diffused   ihan  men  of  science,  ad- 


vocates, notaries,  doctors,  magistrates 
and  philosophers  imagine.  Some  popular 
instincts  are  indeUble.  Of  these,  that  in- 
stinct which  has  been  so  stupidly  termed 
superstition,  is  in  the  very  blood  of  the 
people,  just  as  it  is  in  the  minds  of  their 
superiors.  There  are  in  Paris  seveial 
statesmen  who  consult  fortune-tellers. 

To  the  skeptical,  judicial  astrology — a 
queer  colligation  of  words  by-the-by — is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  taking  ad- 
vantage of  an  innate  feeling,  which  is  one 
of  the  strongest  of  all  human  feelings — 
curiosit3\  The  skeptic,  then,  entirely 
denies  the  existence  of  any  relation  what- 
ever between  the  destinj^  of  an  individual 
and  the  configuration  of  that  destiny 
yielded  by  the  seven  or  eight  principal 
methods  which  judicial  astrology  com- 
prises. But  tlie  occult  sciences  have  shared 
the  fate  of  the  numerous  natui-al  phe- 
nomena that  freethinkers  and  materialist 
philosophers,  or,  in  other  words,  those 
who  recognize  nothing  but  solid  and 
tangible  facts,  the  outcome  of  the  cucur- 
bite  and  the  scales  of  modern  physics  and 
modern  chemistry,  have  refused  to  accept; 
though  sciences  exist  and  continue  to  be 
practiced;  though,  since  the  study  of  them 
has,  for  the  last  two  centuries,  been  neg- 
lected by  the  most  highly  gifted  minds, 
those  sciences  have  made  no  progress. 

Now,  confining  our  attention  to  what 
may  i^ossibly  be  accomplished  \>y  means 
of  divination  : — To  believe  that  the  ante- 
cedent events  of  a  man's  life,  the  secrets 
known  to  him  and  to  him  only,  can  be  ini- 
mediatelj'  represented  by  cards,  which  he 
shuflies  and  cuts,  and  the  fortune-teller 
separates,  according  to  certain  mysterious 
laws,  into  sundrj'  packets,  is  absurd ;  but 
we  must  not  forget  that  steam  locomo- 
tion was  condemned  as  absurd,  that  aerial 
navigation  is  still  condemned  as  absurd  ; 
that  gunpowder,  printing,  spectacles,  en- 
graving, and  the  last  grand  discovery, 
the  daguerreotype,  were  all  condemned 
as  absurd.  If  any  one  had  gone  to  Napo- 
leon and  told  him  that  a  building  or  a 
human  being  is  perpetually,  and  at  all 
times,  represented  by  an  atmospheric 
image;  that  every  object  in  existence  has, 
suspended  in  the  air,  a  spectral  picture  of 


cousm  PONS. 


101 


itself  that  can  be  seen,  that  can  be  seized. 
Napoleon  would  have  shut  the  man  up  in 
Chai'enton,  just  as  Richelieu  found  a  lodg- 
ing in  Bicetre  for  Solomon  de  Canx,  when 
the  Norman  martyr  submitted  to  him 
that  immense  discovery,  steam  naviga- 
tion. Yet  this  is  precisely  what  Daguerre 
has  proved  by  his  invention. 

Now,  if  God  has  written  each  man's 
destinj',  upon  his  phj'siognomy,  in  char- 
acters that  are  legible  to  the  eyes  of  cer- 
tain clairvoyants — the  word  ph3"siognomy 
being  taken  to  mean  the  expression  of  the 
body  in  its  entirety — why  should  not  the 
hand,  which  represents  human  action  in 
its  totality,  and  is  the  sole  instrument  of 
its  manifestation,  present  a  synopsis  of 
the  whole  physiognomj'  ?  Hence  the  sci- 
ence of  chiromancy.  Does  not  societj' 
imitate  God  ?  From  the  aspect  of  a 
man's  hand,  to  foretell  to  him  what  the 
events  of  his  life  will  be,  is  not  a  more 
extraordinary  feat,  on  the  part  of  him 
who  is  endow-ed  with  the  faculties  of  the 
seer,  than  to  tell  a  soldier  that  he  will 
fight,  an  advocate  that  he  will  plead,  a 
shoemaker  that  he  wiU  make  shoes  or 
boots,  or  a  husbandman  that  he  will  ma- 
nure and  cultivate  the  soil.  Let  us  take 
a  striking  example.  Genius  manifests 
itself  so  conspicuously  that  the  most  ig- 
norant persons,  as  they  walk  the  streets 
of  Paris,  can  tell  a  great  artist  when 
thej'  encounter  one.  He  is  like  a  moral 
sun,  whose  rays  illumine  all  they  meet. 
Is  not  the  man  of  feeble  intellect  recog- 
nizable by  impressions  exactly  contrary 
to  those  produced  by  the  man  of  genius  ? 
The  average  man,  again,  attracts  little 
or  no  attention.  Most  persons  who  ob- 
serve social  life  in  Paris  can  tell  a  man's 
profession  as  he  approaches  them.  Now- 
adays, the  mysteries  of  the  witches'  Sab- 
bath, so  well  depicted  by  the  painters  of 
the  sixteenth  centuiy,  are  mystai'ies  no 
longer.  The  Egyptian  women  or  men — 
the  progenitors  of  the  modern  gj-psies — 
that  peculiar  race  which  emigrated  from 
the  East  Indies — simply  drugged  their 
clients  with  hashish.  The  effects  pro- 
duced by  that  conserve  are  quite  sufHcient 
to  account  for  the  riding  on  broomsticks, 
the  flying  up  chimneys,  the  real  visions, 


so  to  speak,  of  old  women  turned  into 
young  ones,  the  furious  dances  and  the 
delightful  music  which  constituted  the 
vagaries  of  the  reputed  devil-worshipers. 

At  the  present  day  we  stand  indebted 
to  the  occult  sciences  for  so  many  well- 
established  and  authenticated  facts  that, 
sooner  or  later,  these  sciences  will  have 
regular  professors,  just  as  chemistry  and 
astronomy  now  have.  It  is  strange  in- 
deed that  at  a  time  when  we  are  estab- 
lishing at  Paris  professorships  of  Slavonic 
and  Mantchu,  and  professorships  of'litei'- 
atures,  so  unprofessable  as  those  of  the 
north — which,  instead  of  giving,  ought  to 
be  receiving  lessons,  and  the  professors  of 
which  do  nothing  but  repeat  eternal  arti- 
cles on  Shakespeare  and  the  sixteenth 
century — it  is  passing  strange  that  the 
study  of  the  occult  philosophy,  one  of 
the  glories  of  the  ancient  university, 
has  not  been  restored  under  the  name 
of  Anthropology.  In  this  respect  Ger- 
many, that  land  which  is  at  once  so 
mature  and  so  infantile,  has  outstripped 
France  ;  for  in  Germany  this  science — a 
science  which  is  much  more  useful  than 
the  various  philosophies,  which  are,  after 
all,  but  one  and  the  same  thing — is  regu- 
larly taught. 

That  certain  beings  should  have  the 
power  of  predicting  future  events  from 
their  germinal  causes  (just  as  the  great 
inventor  detects  an  industry  or  a  science 
in  some  natural  phenomenon  which  eludes 
the  observation  of  the  common  herd)  is 
no  longer  regarded  as  one  of  those  exorbi- 
tant exceptions  which  set  people  talking  ; 
it  is  the  effect  of  an  unknown  faculty 
which  might,  in  some  sort,  be  deemed  the 
somnambulism  of  the  mind. 

If  this  proposition,  on  which,  the  various 
methods  of  deciphering  the  future  rest, 
be  deemed  absurd,  the  fact  itself  remains. 
Observe,  that  to  predict  the  important 
events  of  the  future  is  not  a  more  extra- 
ordinarj'  exhibition  of  power  on  the  part 
of  the  seer  than  ,to  read  the  past ;  for, 
according  to  the  skeptics,  the  past  and 
the  future  are  alike  beyond  our  ken.  But 
if  past  events  have  left  their  traces  be- 
hind' them,  it  is  but  rational  to  presume 
that  coming  events  must  have  their  roots 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


,.i  ohe  present.  When  a  fortune-teller 
h;is  once  related  to  you,  with  the  utmost 
minuteness  of  detail,  facts  in  your  past 
career  which  are  known  to  yourself  onl^', 
he  can  certainly  foretell  I  he  events  that 
existing'  causes  will  produce.  The  moral 
world  is  fashioned,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
pattern  of  the  physical  world  ;  allowing- 
for  tiiirerences  of  medium,  we  may  expect 
to  find  the  same  phenomena  in  both. 
Accordingl.y,  just  as  bodies  do  really  pro- 
ject themselves  into  the  atmosphere,  and 
there  create  those  specters  which  the 
daguerreotj'pe  seizes  and  fixes  as  they 
fly,  so  do  ideas  —  which  are  real  and 
operative  entities  —  imprint  themselves 
upon  that  which  we  are  bound  to  call 
the  atmosphere  of  the  spiritual  world, 
do  there  produce  effects  and  do  there 
spectrally  exist — one  is  forced  to  coin 
phrases  to  describe  phenomena  hitherto 
unnamed — whence  it  follows  tliat  certain 
exceptionally  gifted  beings  may,  without 
any  dilflcultj'^,  perceive  these  ideal  forms 
or  traces  of  ideas. 

As  to  the  means  employed  for  the  pro- 
duction of  visions,  those  means  will  not 
bo  found  to  enshroud  any  very  profound 
mj'stery  when  it  is  considered  that  'tis 
the  hand  of  the  inquirer  himself  that  ar- 
ranges the  objects  by  aid  of  which  he  is 
made  to  represent  the  accidents  of  his  ex- 
istence. As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  ma- 
terial world  there  is  an  unbroken  sequence 
of  cause  and  effect.  There  every  move- 
ment has  its  corresponding  cause  ;  everj'^ 
cause  is  an  integral  part  of  the  one  great 
whole  ;  and,  consequentlj'^,  that  one  great 
whole  is  represented  by  the  least  move- 
ment. Rabelais,  the  greatest  intellect  of 
modern  times  —  Rabelais,  that  epitome 
of  Pythagoras,  Hippocrates,  Aristotle, 
and  Dante,  said,  three  centuries  ago : 
"Man  is  a  microcosm."  Three  centuries 
later,  Swedenborg,  the  great  prophet  of 
Sweden,  said  that  the  earth  was  a  man. 
The  prophet  therefore  concurred  with  the 
precursor  of  infidelity  in  the  grandest  of 
all  formulae.  As  in  the  life  of  our  planet, 
so  in  human  life,  fate  is  the  arbiter  of  all 
things.  The  smallest,  the  most  trivial, 
incidents  are  subject  to  it.  Under  its  in- 
fluence, then,  great  events,  grand  designs. 


great  thoughts  are  reflected  in  the  most 
insignificant  actions,  and  with  such  fidelity 
that,  if  some  conspirator  shuffle  and  cut  a 
pack  of  cards,  he  will  write  upon  them 
th(!  secrcit  of  his  conspiracy  in  characters 
legible  to  the  seer  who  is  called  gypsy, 
fortune-teller,  charlatan,  etc.,  etc.  Once 
admit  the  doctrine  of  fatality,  that  is  to 
say,  the  concatenation  of  causes,  judicial 
astrology  follows  and  becomes — what  it 
formerly  w^as — a  vast  science ;  for  it  in- 
volves the  possession  of  that  deductive 
faculty  which  made  Cuvier  so  great ; 
though  that  fine  genius  did  not  exercise 
the  faculty'  spontaneously  as  the  seer 
does,  but  during  studious  nig-hts  spent  in 
the  seclusion  of  the  closet. 

Judicial  astrology  or  divination  reigTied 
for  seven  centuries,  not,  as  now,  over  the 
poor  and  the  uneducated,  but  over  the 
highest  intellects — over  sovereigns,  over 
queens,  over  the  wealthj'.  Animal  mag- 
netism, one  of  the  greatest  sciences  of 
antiquity,  is  an  offshoot  from  the  occult 
sciences,  just  as  chemistry  sprung  from 
the  alembic  of  the  alchemist.  Craniol- 
ogy,  physiognomy,  neurology,  all  derive 
their  orig-in  from  the  occult  sciences ;  and 
the  illustrious  creators  of  these  apparently 
new  sciences  fell  into  one  mistake  only — 
the  mistake  of  all  inventors — that  of  posi- 
tivel3'-  systematizing  isolated  facts  whose 
generating  cause  has  not  yet  been  discov- 
ered. One  day  the  Catholic  Church,  mod- 
ern philosophy,  and  the  law  united  their 
forces,  to  proscribe,  to  persecute,  and  to 
ridicule  the  mj'steries  of  the  Cabala  and 
its  adepts;  and  the  result  was  a  deploi*- 
able  lacuna  of  a  hundred  years'  duration 
in  the  stud^'^  and  the  sovereig-ntj^  of  the 
occult  sciences.  But  be  that  as  it  may, 
the  people  and  manj'  intelligent  persons, 
especially  women,  continue  to  pay  tribute 
to  the  mysterious  powers  of  those  who  cah 
raise  the  veil  that  hides  the  future  from 
our  sight.  To  them  these  votaries  go 
to  purchase  hope,  courage,  fortitude ;  to 
purchase  that  which  only  religion  can 
give ;  so  that  this  science  is  still  prac- 
ticed, though  not  without  certain  risks. 
In  these  days,  thanks  to  the  toleration 
preached  b3'^  the  encyclopedists  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  sorcerer  is  exempt 


COUSIN    PONS. 


103 


from  torture;  he  is  amenable  to  the  tri- 
bunals of  correctional  police  only  ;  nor  is 
he  amenable  even  to  them  unless  he  have 
I'ecourse  to  fraudulent  maneuvers  by 
frightening-  his  customers  with  intent  to 
extort  money  from  them,  which  amounts 
to  swindling.  Unfortunately  swindling-, 
and  even  greater  offenses,  often  accom- 
pany' the  exercise  of  this  sublime  faculty ; 
for  the  following  reasons  :  The  admirable 
endowments  that  characterize  the  seer 
are  often  to  be  found  in  persons  to  whom 
the  epithet  brute  is  applied.  These  brutes 
are  the  chosen  vessels  which  God  fills  with 
those  elixirs  which  surprise  humanitj'. 
From  the  ranks  of  these  brutes  come  our 
prophets,  such  men  as  Saint  Peter  and 
Peter  the  Hermit. 

Whenever  thought  preserves  its  in- 
tegrity, is  not  split  up  into  fragments, 
is  not  dissipated  in  conversation,  in  in- 
trigue, in.  literary  work,  in  scientific 
fancies,  in  administrative  labors,  in  ef- 
forts to  invent,  or  in  military  operations, 
it  is  ready  suddenly-  to  burst  forth  in  rays 
of  prodigious  intensity,  rays  that  are 
latent  as  the  brilliant  facets  of  the  dia- 
mond lie  hid  in  the  uncut  stone.  Let 
some  particular  event  occur ;  the  stored 
intelligence  begins  to  kindle,  finds  wings 
to  traverse  space,  and  eyes  divine  that 
nothing  can  escape.  Yesterday  'twas 
but  a  lump  of  carbon ;  to-day,  trans- 
formed by  the  jet  of  mysterious  fluid 
that  permeates  it,  it  is  a  scintillating- 
gem.  Persons  of  superior  cultivation, 
persons  every  side  of  whose  intellect  is 
cut  and  polished,  are  unequal  (except 
through  one  of  those  miracles  in  which 
God  sometimes  indulges)  to  the  display 
of  this  supreme  force.  Thus  the  male 
or  female  soothsayer  is  almost  alwaj'S 
a  mendicant  of  uncultivated  intellect,  a 
being  of  coarse  exterior,  a  stone  that 
has  been  rolled  in  the  torrents  of  priva- 
tion and  in  the  ruts  of  life,  where  the 
only  drain  upon  the  vital  force  has  been 
physical  suffering.  In  fact,  the  type  of 
the  prophet,  of  the  seer,  is  Martin  the 
Laborer,  who  made  Louis  XVIII.  tremble 
by  telling  him  a  secret  which  onl^-  the 
king  could  know ;  or  'tis  a  Mademoiselle 
Lenormand,  or  (like  Madame  Fontaine) 


a  cook ;  an  imbecile  negress,  a  herdsman, 
the  constant  companion  of  horned  beasts, 
or  a  fakir,  seated  by  the  side  of  some 
pagoda,  and  developing  the  mind  to  the 
utmost  limits  of  its  unknown  somnam- 
bulistic powers  In-  mortifying  the  body. 
(It  is  in  Asia  that  the  heroes  of  the  occult 
sciences  have  ever  been  encountered.) 
Now  such  persons — who  may,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  be  said  to  fulfill  the  phj-sical 
and  chemical  functions  of  electrical  con- 
ductors, which  are  now  inert  metals,  and 
now  channels  filled  with  m\-sterious  fluids 
— such  persons,  in  their  ordinary  state, 
retain  their  ordinarj-  character,  and 
when,  the  inspiration  having  departed, 
they  resume  that  character,  they  fre- 
quently resort  to  schemes  and  practices 
which  subject  them  to  fine  and  imprison- 
ment, nay,  sometimes  lead  them  even 
into  the  dock,  and  thence  to  the  galleys, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  notorious  Balthazar. 
In  conclusion — and  what  stronger  proof 
of  the  enormous  influence  exercised  by 
cartomancy  over  the  minds  of  the  com- 
mon i)eople  could  there  be  ? — it  depended 
upon  the  hoi-oscope  cast  by  Madame  Fon- 
taine for  Madame  Cibot,  whether  the 
poor  musician  should  live  or  die. 

Although  in  a  history  so  extensive  and 
so  loaded  with  details,  as  a  complete  his- 
tory of  French  society  in  the  nineteenth 
centurj'  must  necessarily  be,  certain  repe- 
titions are  inevitable,  it  is  superfluous  to 
describe  the  den  of  Madame  Fontaine, 
since  a  description  of  it  has  alreadj'  been 
given  in  "Les  Comediens  sans  Ic  savoir." 
All  that  need  here  be  said  is  tliat  Madame 
Cibot  walked  into  Madame  Fontaine's 
house  in  the  Rue  Vieille  du  Temple,  just 
as  the  regular  frequenters  of  the  Cafe 
Anglais  walk  into  that  restaurant  to  gret 
their  breakfast.  Madame  Cibot.  who  was 
a  very  old  customer  of  Madame  Fon- 
taine's, often  introduced  to  her  young 
women  and  gossips  devoured  by  curi- 
osity. 

The  old  abigail  who  acted  as  provost  to 
the  fortune-teller  threw  open  tlic  door  of 
the  sanctuary  without  giving  lier  mistress 
any  warning,  and  exclaimed  : 

"  'Tis  Madame  Cibot !  Step  in,  mad- 
ame,"  she  added;  "my  mistress  is  alone." 


104 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY, 


"  Well,  my  darling,  and  pray  wliat  is 
it  briiig:s  you  here  so  earl 3'  ?  "  inquired  the 
soi'ceress. 

Madame  Fontaine,  who  was  seventj'- 
eight  3'ears  old,  deserved  the  appellation 
sorceress;  she  resembled  one  of  tlie  Parcae. 

"My  blood  is  completijly  turned;  let 
me  have  the  grand  pack,"  cried  Madame 
Cibot.     "My  whole  fortune  is  at  stake." 

And  she  proceeded  to  explain  the  posi- 
tion in  which  she  stood,  and  asked  for  a 
prediction  as  to  the  outcome  of  her  sordid 
hope. 

"  You  don't  know  what  the  grand  pack 
is,  do  you  ?  "  inquired  Madame  Fontaine, 
solemnly'. 

"No;  I'm  not  rich  enough  to  have  seen 
that  farce  played  !  A  hundred  francs, 
forsooth  !  Asking  your  pardon — where 
should  I  get  a  hundred  francs  from  ?  But 
to-day  the  grand  pack  I  must  have  !  " 

"  I  don't  often  use  it,  my  darling,"  re- 
plied Madame  Fontaine.  "I  onlj^  show  it 
to  worthy  customers  on  great  occasions ; 
and  then  I  get  twent^'-five  louis  for  it ; 
for  it  wearies  me,  it  wears  me  out,  look 
you.  The  spirit  seizes  me  thei'e,  in  the 
stomach.  It  is  just  like  going  to  the 
witches'  Sabbath,  as  they  used  to  say." 

"  But  when  I  tell  you,  my  good  Mad- 
ame Fontaine,  that  mj'  future  n'is  in- 
volved— " 

'■'  Well,  well  ;  for  you,  who  have 
brought  me  so  many  customers,  I  will 
consult  the  Spirit,"  replied  Madame 
Fontaine,  whose  decrepit  face  assumed 
a  terrified  expression  that  was  perfectly 
genuine. 

Thereupon  she  quitted  her  old  and 
greasy  armchair  at  the  corner  of  the 
fireplace,  and  walked  to  her  table,  which 
was  covered  with  a  green  cloth  complete- 
ly threadbare.  On  the  left  side  of  this 
table  was  to  be  seen  an  enormous  toad 
asleep,  and  close  behind  the  toad  stood  an 
open  cage  tenanted  by  a  black  hen  with 
niffli'd  plumage. 

■•  Aslitaroth,  mj'  boy,  come  here,"  said 
the  crone,  as  with  a  knitting-needle  she 
gave  the  toad  a  tap  on  the  back,  to  which 
he  replied  with  a  glance  of  intelligence. 
"And  you,  too.  Miss  Cleopatra  !  Atten- 
tion !  "  she  pursued,  tapping  the  old  hen 


upon  its  beak.  Madame  Fontaine  then 
lapsed  into  meditation  and  remained  mo- 
tionless for  a  few  seconds  ;  she  looked  like 
a  corpse  ;  her  eyes  turned  till  nothing  was 
seen  of  them  but  the  whites.  Then  her" 
whole  body  stiffened,  and  she  exclaimed, 
in  a  sepulchral  voice:  "I  am  here!" 
After  having  automatically^  strewed  some 
millet  about  for  Cleopatra,  she  took  her 
grand  pack  of  cards,  shuffled  them  con- 
vulsively, and  with  a  deep-drawn  sigh 
made  Madame  Cibot  cut  them.  At  the 
sight  of  this  image  of  death,  as,  crowned 
with  a  greasy  turban  and  wrapped  in  an 
unsig'htly  bed-gown,  it  kept  its  eyes  fixed 
on  the  millet-seed  which  the  black  hen 
was  pecking  at,  and  summoned  Aslitaroth 
to  crawl  about  over  the  scattered  cards, 
Madame  Cibot  felt  her  back  turn  cold ; 
she  shuddered.  'Tis  only  firm  conviction 
that  can  give  rise  to  deep  emotions. 
"  To  be  or  not  to  be  "  a  fundholder  ;  that 
was  the  question,  as  Shakespeare  would 
have  said. 


XIV. 


A    CHARACTER    FROM    ONE   OF    HOFFMAN  S         ' 

STORIES. 

After  the  lapse  of  seven  or  eight  min- 
utes, during  which  the  sorceress  opened, 
and  in  a  hollow  voice  read  from  the  pages 
of  a  conjui'ing  book,  examined  the  seed 
that  was  left,  and  marked  the  route  taken 
by  the  retreating  toad,  she  proceeded  to 
decipher  the  meaning  of  the  cards  with 
her  colorless  ej'es. 

"You  will  succeed,"  said  the  crone; 
"although  nothing  will  turn  out  as  you 
expect.  You  will  have  a  great  deal  to  do. 
But  you  will  reap  the  fruit  of  your  labors. 
You  will  behave  very  badly ;  but  it  will 
be  with  you  as  it  is  with  all  those  who, 
being  brought  into  contact  with  sick  folks, 
are  on  the  lookout  for  a  legacy.  You  will 
be  aided  in  your  evil  work  by  considerable 
personages.  Later  on,  you  Avill  repent,  in 
the  agonies  of  death ;  for  j'ou  will  die, 
murdered  by  two  escaped  convicts  (one  of 
them,  a  little  man  with  red  hair,  and  the 
other,  an  old  man  quite  bald)  for  the  sake 


COUSIN    PONS. 


105 


of  the  fortune  you  will  be  supposed  to 
have,  by  the  people  of  the  villag-e  to  which 
3'ou  will  retire  with  your  second  hus- 
band. Now,  my  daughter,  j-ou  may 
pursue  your  course  or  remain  quiet,  as 
you  please." 

Thereupon  the  internal  excitement  that 
had  kindled  torches  in  the  hollow  ej'es  of 
the  skeleton  that  was  outwardl3'  so  cold, 
subsided.  When  the  horoscope  had  been 
announced,  Madame  Fontaine  experienced 
a  kind  of  bewilderment,  and  looked  exactly 
like  an  awakened  somnambulist.  She 
gazed  all  round  her,  with  an  air  of  as- 
tonishmeut;  then,  recognizing  Madame 
Cibot,  she  seemed  surprised  to  find  her  a 
prey  to  the  horror  depicted  in  her  feat- 
ures. 

"  Well,  my  daughter,"  said  the  sorcer- 
ess, in  a  voice  quite  different  from  that 
which  she  had  used  when  prophesying, 
"  are  you  satisfied  ?  " 

Madame  Cibot  looked  with  a  dazed  ex- 
pression at  the  inquirer,  and  found  herself 
unable  to  reply. 

"Ah  !  you  tvould  have  the  grand  pack  ; 
I  treated  you  as  an  old  acquaintance. 
Give  me  a  hundred  francs  ;  but — " 

"  Cibot !  die  !  "  cried  the  portress. 

"  I  have  told  you  some  terrible  things, 
then?"  said  Madame  Fontaine,  with  the 
utmost  ingenuovisness. 

"I  should  think  so!"  said  Madame 
Cibot,  taking  from  her  pocket  a  hundred 
francs  and  laying  them  on  the  table. 
"To  die,  murdered!" 

"  Ah !  you  see,  you  woitld  have  the 
grand  pack.  But  take  comfort  ;  the 
people  whom  the  cards  kill  do  not  al- 
ways diet" 

"  But  is  it  possible,  Mistress  Fontaine  ?" 

"  Oh  !  my  little  beauty,  I  know  nothing 
about  the  matter  !  You  wished  to  knock 
at  the  door  of  the  future ;  I  merely  pulled 
the  string,  that's  all ;  and  he  came  !  " 

"  He,  who's  he  .?"  asked  Madame  Cibot. 

"Why,  the  Spirit,  of  course,"  replied 
the  .sorceress,  impatiently. 

"■  Adieu,  Mistress  Fontaine  !  "  cried  the 
portress.  "Little  did  I  know  what  the 
grand  pack  was ;  you  have  thoroughly' 
frightened  me,  indeed  you  n'have  !  " 

"  Mistress  doesn't  put  herself  into  that 


condition  twice  a  month,"  said  the  ser- 
vant, as  she  accompanied  the  portress 
to  the  landing.  "  She  would  die  of  the 
exertion;  it  tires  her  so  much.  Now  she 
will  eat  a  dish  of  cutlets  and  sleep  for 
three  hours." 

As  Madame  Cibot  pursued  her  way 
tuhrogh  the  streets,  she  did  what  all 
those  who  seek  advice  of  any  kind  in- 
variably' do ;  she  believed  all  that  told  in 
her  favor,  and  doubted  the  reahty  of  the 
predicted  misfortunes.  On  the  morrow, 
fortified  in  her  resolutions,  she  bethought 
her  to  move  heaven  and  earth  in  order 
that  she  might  grow  rich  by  securing  the 
gift  of  a  portion  of  the  Pons  Museum.  To 
devise  such  measures  as  might  conduce  to 
the  success  of  her  scheme,  was,  for  a  time, 
her  only  thought.  The  phenomenon  which 
we  explained  but  now,  namely,  the  con- 
centration of  the  mental  faculties  in  com- 
mon people,  who  not  being  called  upon, 
as  their  betters  are,  for  the  dail^'  expendi- 
ture of  their  intellectual  capital,  find  it 
intact  when  that  powerful  engine — the 
fixed  idea — begins  to  sway  their  spirits, 
now  manifested  itself  in  a  remarkable 
manner  in  the  conduct  of  Madame  .Cibot. 
Just  as  the  fixed  idea  produces  marvelous 
escapes  and  miracles  of  sentiment,  so  cu- 
pidity, worldng  on  the  brain  of  this  por- 
tress, rendered  her  as  potent  as  a  Nucingen 
on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy-,  as  acute,  be- 
neath her  apparent  stupidity,  as  the 
seductive  La  Palferine. 

Some  days  after  her  interview  with 
Madame  Fontaine,  seeing  Remonencq 
engaged  in  opening  his  shop  at  about 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  she  sidled 
up  to  him  and  said  to  him  : 

"What  are  we  to  do  in  order  to  find 
out  the  value  of  the  things  up  yonder  in 
my  gentlemen's  rooms  ?  " 

"Oh!  that's  easy  enough,"  said  the 
curiosity-dealer  in  that  revolting  patois, 
the  reproduction  of  which  is  not  essential 
to  the  clearness  of  the  narrative  ;  "if  you 
will  deal  frankly  with  me,  I  will  name  a 
valuer,  a  very  honest  man,  who  will  know 
what  the  pictures  are  worth,  almost  to  a 
pennj'." 

"  Who's  that  ?  " 

"Monsieur  Magus,  a  Jew,  who  never 


106 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


does  any  business  now  except  by  way  of 
amusement." 

Elie  Mag-US,  whose  name  is  so  well 
known  in  the  "Comeclie  Humaine  "  that 
it  is  unnecessary  to  describe  him,  had  re- 
tired from  the  business  of  dealer  in  pict- 
ures and  curiosities,  and,  in  his  capacity 
of  tradesman,  had  followed  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Pons  the  amateur.  Those  cele- 
brated valuers,  the  late  Henry,  Messieurs 
Pigeot  and  Moret,  Theret,  Georges  and 
Roehn — in  short,  the  experts  of  the  Mu- 
seum— were  mere  children  as  compared 
with  Elie  Magus,  who  could  smell  a  chef- 
d'oeuvre  under  a  coating- of  dirt  a  hundred 
years  old,  and  knew  all  the  schools  of 
painting  and  the  stj^le  of  every  painter. 

This  Jew,  who  had  come  to  Paris  from 
Bordeaux,  had  given  up  business  in  1835, 
without  giving  up  his  poverty-stricken 
exterior.  This  he  retained  faithful,  as 
most  Jews  are,  to  the  traditions  of  the 
race.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Jews, 
in  order  to  divert  suspicion,  were  com- 
pelled to  be  perpetually  complaining, 
whining,  and  pleading  poverty;  and  these 
exploded  necessities  became  (as  ah^ays 
happens)  a  popular  instinct,  an  endemic 
vice.  Elie  Magus,  by  dint  of  buying  and 
selling  diamonds,  bartering  pictures  and 
lace,  choice  curiosities  and  enamels,  fine 
sculpture  and  old  jewelry,  had  secretlj' 
amassed  a  large  foi'tune  in  this  branch  of 
trade,  which  is  now  so  extensively  carried 
on.  In  fact,  the  number  of  dealers  in 
Paris  is  now  ten  times  as  large  as  it  was 
twenty  years  ago.  Paris  is  the  city  in 
which  all  the  curiosities  in  the  world  fore- 
gather. As  to  pictures,  there  are  only 
three  cities  in  which  thej'-  are  sold — Rome, 
London,  and  Paris. 

Elie  Magus  dwelt  in  the  Chaussee  des 
Miiiimes,  a  street  leading  to  the  Place 
Royale.  In  that  street,  whose  magni- 
tude belies  its  name,  he  owned  an  old  man- 
sicm  which  he  had  bought  in  1831  for  an 
old  song,  as  the  saying  is.  This  magnifi- 
cent edifice  contained  a  most  luxurious 
suite  of  rooms  which  had  been  fitted  up 
during  the  Louis  Quinze  period.  In  fact, 
it  was  the  old  Hotel  de  Maulincourt.  It 
had  been  built  b^^  that  celebrated  presi- 
dent of  the  Cour  des  Aides,  and  had  es- 


caped destruction  during  the  Revolution 
bj^  reason  of  its  position.  Now  since,  in 
defiance  of  tlie  laws  of  Israel,  th^  old 
Jew  had  made  up  his  mind  to  turn  l?ind- 
owncr,  you  may  be  sure  that  he  had  ex- 
cellent reasons  for  his  conduct.  The  old 
man  had  done  what  we  all  do  in  our  de- 
clining 3'ears ;  he  "had  developed  a  passion, 
which  had  grown  into  a  mania.  Although 
he  was  as  great  a  miser  as  his  deceased 
friend  Gobseck,  he  allowed  himself  to  be- 
come infected  with  a  passionate  admira- 
tion for  the  masterpieces  in  which  he 
dealt ;  but  his  taste  for  them  had  grown 
more  and  more  refined  and  fastidious, 
until  it  had  become  one  of  those  passions 
which  are  permitted  only  to  sovereigns 
who  are  wealthy  and  love  the  Arts.  Just 
as  the  second  king  of  Prussia  cared  little 
for  a  grenadier  under  six  feet  high,  and 
would  spend  enormous  suins  in  order  to 
add  to  his  animated  museum  of  grena- 
diers a  specimen  who  reached  that  stand- 
ard, so  the  enthusiasm  of  the  retired 
picture-dealer  was  aroused  only  by  the 
faultless  specimens  of  the  painter's  art — 
specimens  that  had  never  been  retouched 
by  an  inferior  hand,  and  were  first-rate  of 
their  kind.  Elie  Magus  accordingly  went 
to  every  important  sale,  attended  every 
mart,  and  traveled  all  over  Europe.  This 
gold-enamored,  ice-cold  heart  warmed  up 
on  beholding  a  masterpiece,  just  as  an  ex- 
hausted voluptuarj'-  kindles  at  the  sight  of 
a  peerless  beauty,  and  devotes  himself  to 
the  discovery  of  such  paragons.  This 
Don  Juan  of  the  picture-gallery,  this 
idolater  of  the  ideal,  found  in  his  enthusi- 
astic admiration  joys  superior  to  those 
that  the  contemplation  of  gold  yields  to 
the  miser.  Elie  Magus  lived  in  a  seraglio 
of  beautiful  pictures ! 

These  masterpieces  were  lodged  as  be- 
fits the  children  of  princes.  In  the  old 
Hotel  de  Maulincourt  they  occupied  the 
whole  of  the  first  story,  which  Elie  Magus 
had  caused  to  be  restored  with  remark- 
able splendor  !  The  window-curtains  were 
of  the  finest  Venetian  gold  brocade ;  the 
most  magnificent  products  of  the  Savon- 
nerie  carpeted  the  floors.  The  jiictures, 
to  the  number  of  about  one  hundred,  were 
inclosed    in    the    most  splendid    frames. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


107 


which  had  been  tastefully  regilded  bj'  the 
only  conscientious  gilder. that  Elie  could 
find  in  all  Paris — Servais,  to  wit,  whom 
the  old  Jew  had  instructed  in  the  art  of 
gilding-  with  English  gold  (which  is  infi- 
nitelj'  superior  to  that  of  the  French  gold- 
beaters). Servais  is,  as  a  gilder,  what 
Thouvenin  was  as  a  book-binder  —  an 
artist  who  loves  his  craft.  The  windows 
of  this  first  floor  were  protected  by  shut- 
ters lined  with  sheet  iron.  Magus  himself 
occupied  a  couple  of  attics  on  the  second 
floor — two  meanly  furnished  rooms,  en- 
cumbered with  his  rags,  and  redolent  of 
Jewish  habits  ;  for  as  the  commencement 
of  his  life  had  been,  even  so  was  its  close. 

On  the  ground-floor,  which  was  entirely 
taken  up  by  the  pictures  that  the  Jew 
still  continued  to  barter,  and  by  the  pack- 
ing-cases in  which  they  had  been  sent  from 
abroad,  there  was  a  vast  studio  Avherein 
Moret,  the  most  skillful  of  our  picture 
cleaners — a  man  who  ought  to  be  em- 
plo3'ed  by  the  authorities  of  the  Museum 
— spent  almost  the  whole  of  his  time  in 
working  for  Magus.  On  this  floor  also 
were  the  apartments  of  Elie's  daughter, 
the  child  of  his  old  age,  a  Jewess  who  was 
beautiful  with  the  beauty  common  to  all 
Jewesses  in  whose  features  the  pure  Asi- 
atic type  is  reproduced.  Noemi  was  under 
the  protecting  care  of  two  female  ser- 
vants, both  of  whom  were  fanatics,  and 
of  Jewish  extraction.  A  Polish  Jew  named 
Abramko,  who,  through  some  extraordi- 
nary fi'eak  of  fortune,  had  been  compro- 
mised by  the  course  of  events  in  Poland, 
and  had  been  saved  b^''  Elie  Magus,  as  a 
matter  of  speculation,  was  Noemi's  ad- 
vanced guard.  This  Abramko,  the  porter 
of  this  silent,  drear,  and  desolate  abode, 
occupied  a  lodge  garrisoned  b}'  three  ex- 
tremely ferocious  dogs,  one  of  which  was 
a  Newfoundland,  another  a  Pyreneandog, 
and  the  third  an  English  bull-dog. 

The  Jew,  who  used  to  quit  his  home 
without  any  feeling  of  uneasiness,  to 
sleep  soundly  ahd  dread  no  attack,  either 
upon  his  daughter — his  chief  treasure — or 
upon  his  pictures,  or  upon  his  gold,  had 
good  reasons  for  this  freedom  from  anx- 
iety which  was  based  upon  the  following 
deeply  planned  precautions :  Abramko 's  I 


wages  were  raised  eight  pounds  every 
year;  he  was  not  to  receive  a  single  doit 
at  the  death  of  Magus,  who  was  bringing 
him  up  to  be  the  money-lender  of  the 
neighborhood  ;  he  never  opened  the  door 
to  any  caller  without  subjecting  him  to  a 
preliminary  scrutiny  through  a  grated 
window.  Abramko,  a  man  of  herculean 
build,  worshiped  Magus  as  Sancho  Panza 
worshiped  Don  Quixote.  The  dogs  were 
chained  up  during  the  day,  but  at  night- 
fall Abramko  unchained  them ;  where- 
upon, in  accordance  with  the  cunning 
calculations  of  the  Jew,  one  of  them 
would  station  himself  in  the  garden,  at 
tlie  foot  of  a  post,  on  the  top  of  which 
a  bit  of  meat  was  hooked  ;  the  second 
would  plant  himself  in  the  court  at  the 
foot  of  a  similar  post,  and  the  third  in 
the  large  salon  on  the  ground-floor. 
The  reader  will  at  once  perceive  that 
these  dogs,  whose  untutored  instinct  led 
them  to  guard  the  house,  were  themselves 
guarded  by  tlieir  Imnger.  The  fairest 
female  of  their  race  would  not  have 
seduced  them  from  their  posts  at  the 
foot  of  their  greased  poles,  which  they 
did  not  quit  to  sniff  at  anything.  Did 
a  stranger  present  himself,  the  three 
dogs  forthwith  imagined  that  he  had  de- 
signs upon  their  food,  the  food  which  was 
never  lowered  to  them  until  Abramko  rose 
in  the  morning.  This  infernal  submissive- 
ness  on  the  part  of  the  dogs  was  attend- 
ed by  Immense  advantages.  They  never 
barked ;  the  genius  of  Magus  had  pro- 
moted them  to  the  rank  of  savages ;  they 
had  become  as  sullenly  taciturn  as  Mo- 
hicans. Now  mark  the  result.  One  day 
certain  malefactors,  encouraged  by  the 
prevailing  silence,  took  it  into  their  heads 
tliat  they  would  have  little  difficulty  in 
cleaning  out  the  cash-box  of  the  Jew. 
The  one  who  was  selected  to  lead  the 
attack  mounted  the  garden  wall,  and  was 
in  the  act  of  descending,  when  the  bull- 
dog, who  had  heard  the  whole  proceeding 
without,  up  to  that  point,  interfering,  n« 
sooner  found  the  gentleman's  foot  within 
reach  of  his  canine  jaws  than  he  bit  it 
clean  off  and  eat  it.  The  robber  had 
courage  enough  to  recross  the  wall  ani 
walk  upon  the  bleeding  stump  until  lie 


103 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


reached  his  comrades,  and,  falling-  faint- 
ing- into  their  arms,  was  by  them  borne 
off.  This  charming^  little  episode  of  "  The 
Parisian  Nights"  was  duly  chronicled  in 
tlie  "'Gazette  des  Tribunaux,"  under  the 
head  of  "  Doings  in  Paris,"  and  was  taken 
for  a  puff. 

JIag-us,  who  was  now  seventy-five  years 
of  age,  mig-ht  well  live  to  be  a  hundred. 
Rich  as  he  was,  he  lived  as  the  Remo- 
nencqs  lived.  Three  thousand  francs  cov- 
ered his  annual  expenses,  including-  his 
extravagances  on  behalf  of  his  daughter. 
The  old  man  led  a  life  of  the  severest 
regularitj-.  He  rose  with  the  sun,  and 
made  his  breakfast  on  bread  rubbed  with 
garlic.  That  carried  him  on  till  the  din- 
ner hour.  He  always  dined  at  home,  and 
with  monastic  frugality.  The  interval 
between  his  rising-  and  noon  was  em- 
ployed by  the  monomaniac  in  pacing  up 
and  down  the  apartment  that  contained 
his  masterpieces.  There  he  dusted  every- 
thing, furniture  as  well  as  pictures  ;  and 
never  did  his  admiration  flag.  Then  he 
would  g:o  down  to  his  daug-hter's  room, 
and  having-  drunk  deep  of  the  pleasures 
of  jiaternity,  would  set  off  on  his  rambles 
through  Paris,  attend  sales,  visit  exhibi- 
tions, and  so  forth.  When  he  stumbled 
on  a  masterpiece,  in  a  state  which  satis- 
fled  his  self-imposed  conditions,  the  blood 
began  to  course  more  quickly  through  his 
veins  ;  here  was  a  cunning  stroke  of  busi- 
ness to  be  done,  a  transaction  to  be  car- 
ried through,  a  battle  of  Mareng-o  to  be 
gained  !  In  order  to  secure  this  new  sul- 
tana for  a  moderate  sum  he  would  heap 
artifice  on  artifice.  Magus  had  his  own 
private  map  of  Europe — a  map  on  which 
the  local  habitation  of  every  masterpiece 
is  marked— and  he  instructed  his  co-relig- 
ionists in  each  localitj^  to  keep  a  watchful 
eye  upon  the  business  on  his  behalf — for 
a  consideration.  If  Magus  took  a  world 
of  trouble  how  vast  was  his  reward  ! 

For  it  is  Magus  who  possesses  the  two 
lost  pictures  of  Raphael  which  the  Ra- 
phaelites  have  sought  with  so  much  per- 
sistence ;  Mag-US  is  the  owner  of  the  orig-- 
inal  portrait  of  Giorgione's  mistress — the 
woman  for  whose  sake  the  artist  died ; 
and  the  so-called  originals  are  but  copies 


of  this  illustrious  picture  which,  in  Magus's 
opinion,  is  worth  no  less  than  five  hundred 
thousand  francs.  Mag-us  is  tlie  owner 
of  Titian's  masterpiece,  "The  Burial  of 
Chi"ist,"  a  picture  that  was  painted  for 
Charles  V.,  and  sent  by  the  great  artist 
to  the  great  emperor  accompanied  by  a 
letter  which  is  throughout  in  Titian's 
handwriting,  and  is  gummed  to  the  bot- 
tom of  the  picture.  Magus  possesses  the 
original  painting,  the  rough  sketch  from 
which  all  the  portraits  of  Philip  II.  were 
taken.  His  other  pictures,  to  the  number 
of  ninety-seven,  are  all  of  similar  rank 
and  distinction.  So  that  Magus  laughs 
to  scorn  our  poor  Museum,  ravaged  as  it 
is  by  the  solar  rays  which,  passing  through 
windows  that  act  like  so  man\'  lenses, 
corrode  the  finest  pictures.  The  only 
admissible  method  of  lighting  a  picture- 
gallery  is  to  light  it  from  the  ceiling. 
With  his  own  hand  did  Magus  open  and 
close  the  shutters  of  his  museum,  bestow- 
ing ;is  much  care  upon  it  as  he  bestowed 
upon  his  other  idol — his  daughter.  Ah  I 
full  well  did  the  old  picture-maniac  un- 
derstand the  laws  that  govern  paintings  ! 
According  to  him,  masterpieces  had  a 
life  peculiar  to  themselves  ;  the^'  changed 
with  the  changing  hour ;  their  beauty 
depended  on  the  light  that  shone  upon 
them ;  the  old  man  talked  about  his  pict- 
ures as  the  Dutch  used  to  talk  about 
their  tulips,  and  would  i^ay  a  visit  to  such 
and  such  a  painting  at  the  moment  when 
it  was  to  be  seen  in  all  its  glory  under  the 
influence  of  a  clear  bright  sky. 

Clad  in  a  wretched  little  coat,  a  silk 
waistcoat  of  ten  years'  standing,  and  a 
greas\'  pair  of  trousers,  this  little  old 
man  with  the  bald  head,  the  hollow 
cheeks,  the  quivering  beard  of  prickly 
white,  the  pointed  threatening  chin,  the 
toothless  mouth,  eye  bright  as  that  of  his 
own  dogs,  thin  bony  hands,  obelisk-nose, 
and  cold  and  wrinkled  skin-,  as  he  stood 
smiling  at  these  beautiful  creations  of 
genius,  was  a  living  pictui^e  among  all 
those  inanimate  pictures.  A  Jew  in  the 
midst  of  three  millions  of  mone\'  will  ever 
be  one  of  the  flnest  spectacles  in  the  re- 
pertory of  humanity.  Our  great  actor 
Robert  Medal,  sublime  as  he  is,  cannot 


^ 


COUSIX    FO]^S. 


100 


soar  to  that  poetic  height !  There  are 
more  of  sucli  originals  as  Magus  in  Paris 
than  in  any  other  city  in  the  world.  The 
eccentricities  of  London  always  wind  up 
by  becoming  disgusted  with  the  objects 
of  their  adoration,  just  as  they  become 
disgusted  with  life;  while  your  Parisian 
monomimiac,  on  the  contraiy,  dwells  with 
his  chimera  in  a  happj'  state  of  intellect- 
ual communion.  At  Paris  you  will  en- 
counter many  a  Pons  and  many  an  Elie 
ilagus,  most  shabbily  dressed  creatures, 
with  noses  (like  that  of  the  permanent 
secretary  of  the  French  Academy)  point- 
ing due  west,  and  who  seem  to  be  with- 
out cares  and  without  sensations,  who 
never  look  at  a  woman  or  a  shop,  walk 
about,  so  to  speak,  hap-hazard,  with 
nothing  in  their  pockets,  and — to  all  out- 
ward seeming — nothing  in  their  pates. 
•'To  what  tribe  of  Parisian  can  these 
folks  belong?"  you  ask  yourself.  Well, 
these  men  are  millionaires,  collectors,  the 
most  impassioned  people  in  the  world, 
people  who  are  quite  capable  of  pushing 
forward  into  the  miry  region  of  the  police- 
court — as  Elie  Magus  actually  did  one  fine 
day,  in  Germany — in  their  eagerness  to 
possess  a  cup,  a  picture,  or  some  rare  coin. 

Such  then  was  the  expert  to  whom 
Madame  Cibot  was,  with  much  mysterj^, 
conducted  by  Remonencq,  who  was  in 
the  habit  of  consulting  Elie  Magus  when- 
ever they  met  on  the  boulevard,  and  to 
whom  the  Jew,  well  knowing  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  former  commissionaire, 
had,  on  sundry  occasions,  advanced  money 
through  Abrainko.  The  Chaussee  des 
Minimes  being  only  a  few  steps  fi'om  the 
Rue  de  Normandie,  the  two  accomplices 
in  the  stroke  of  business  to  be  done, 
reached  their  destination  in  ten  minutes. 

'•'  You  are  going  to  see  the  wealthiest 
retired  curiosity -dealer  and  the  greatest 
connoisseur  in  Paris,"  said  Remonencq  to 
the  lady. 

Madame  Cibot  was  astounded  at  find- 
ing herself  in  the  presence  of  a  little  old 
man,  dressed  in  a  great-coat  too  mucJi 
worn  to  be  worthy  of  Cibot's  amending 
hand,  and  occupied  in  watching  his  pict- 
ure-restorer, a  painter,  who  was  engaged 
in  touching  up  a  picture  in  a  bare  room 


on  the  vast  ground-floor  which  we  have 
mentioned.  When  she  caught  the  glance 
of  those  eyes,  which  were  as  full  of  calcu- 
lating mischief  as  those  of  a  cat,  she 
tremblod . 

"  What  do  you  want,  Remonencq  ?  " 
inquired  the  Jew. 

' '  I  want  some  pictures  valued  :  and 
you  are  the  only  person  in  Paris  who  can 
tell  a  poor  coppersmith  like  me  what  he 
may  venture  to  give  for  them  when  he 
has  not  hundreds  and  thousands  as  you 
have." 

"Where  are  they?  "  asked  Elie  Magus. 

"  This  is  the  portress  of  the  house  ;  she 
is  the  gentleman's  housekeeper,  and  I 
have  made  arrangements  with  her — " 

"  What  is  the  name  of  the  owner  of  the 
pictures?" 

"  Monsieur  Pons,"  said  Madame  Cibot. 

'•'I  don't  know  him,"  replied  Magus, 
assuming  an  ingenuous  air,  and  with  his 
own  foot  gently  pressing  that  of  his  pict- 
ure-cleaner. 

Moret,  who,  being  a  painter,  knew  the 
value  of  the  Pons  Museum,  had  bruskly 
raised  his  head.  This  httle  bit  of  by-plaj' 
could  have  been  hazarded  only  in  the 
presence  of  persons  such  as  Remonencq 
and  Madame  Cibot.  The  Jew,  using  his 
eyes  as  a  gold-weigher  uses  his  scales, 
had  appraised  the  moral  value  of  the 
portress  at  a  glance.  Both  she  and  her 
accomplice  were  necessarily  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  the  worthy  Pons  and  ilagus 
had  often  taken  the  length  of  each  other's 
claws.  In  fact,  these  two  ferocious  ama- 
teurs were  envious  of  each  other.  Tlie 
old  Jew  had,  accordingly,  just  experienced 
a  sort  of  mental  dazzlement.  He  had 
never  hoped  to  penetrate  into  so  well- 
guarded  a  harem.  The  Pons  Museum 
was  the  only  museum  in  Paris  that  could 
be  compared  with  that  of  Magus.  The 
same  idea  that  had  occurred  to  Pons  had 
occurred  to  Jlagus;  only  it  occuired  to 
him  twenty  years  later.  But  as  being 
that  hybrid,  a  tradesman-amateur,  he, 
like  the  late  Dusommerard,  had  been  ex- 
chided  from  the  Pons  Museum.  Pons 
and  Magus  were  both  imbued  with  the 
same  jealous  feeling  ;  both  of  them 
shunned  that  publicity  which  the  owners 


110 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


of  collections  generallj'  court.  To  be  en- 
abled to  examine  the  gallery  of  the  poor 
musician  afforded  Elie  Magus  as  much 
delight  as  a  lover  of  the  fair  sex  would 
derive  from  a  surreptitious  visit  to  the 
boudoir  in  which  a  jealous  friend  had  se- 
questered a  beautiful  mistress. 

The  gi-eat  respect  evinced  )ay  Remonencq 
for  this  strange  personage,  and  the  spell 
that  all  genuine  power — even  though  it 
be  mj-sterious — exerts,  rendered  Madame 
Cibot  supple  and  submissive:  she  dropped 
the  autocratic  tone  tliat  she  adopted  in 
the  lodge  in  lier  intercourse  with  her 
two  gentlemen  and  with  the  other  occu- 
pants of  the  house,  accepted  Magus's 
conditions,  and  promised  to  introduce 
him  into  the  Pons  Museum  that  veiy 
Ao.\.  Now,  this  was  admitting  the  enemy 
into  the  very  citadel  itself ;  this  Avas 
equivalent  to  plunging  a  dagger  into 
the  heart  of  Pons,  who,  for  ten  years 
past,  had  laid  upon  Madame  Cibot  a 
strict  injunction  not  to  allow  any  one 
whomsoever  to  enter  his  apartments, 
and  had  always  taken  his  keys  -with 
him  when  he  went  out;  and  this  injunc- 
tion Madame  Cibot  had  obej-ed  so  long 
as  she  shared  the  opinions  of  Schmucke 
in  the  matter  of  bric-a-brac.  Indeed  tlie 
worthy  Schmucke,  by  treating  all  these 
magnificent  works  as  mere  gewgaws  and 
bewailing  Pons's  mania,  had  instilled  his 
own  contempt  for  the  old  rubbish  into  the 
mind  of  the  portress,  and  thus  secured 
the  Pons  Museum  from  invasion  for  many 
a  year. 

Since  Pons  had  been  confined  to  his  bed, 
Schmucke  had  acted  as  his  deputy,  both 
at  the  tlieater  and  in  the  schools  that 
Pons  attended.  The  poor  German,  who 
saw  his  friend  only  in  the  morning  and  at 
dinner-time,  tried  to  meet  all  demands  by 
keeping  together  both  Pons's  connection 
and  his  own.  But  the  task  exhausted 
all  the  old  man's  energies,  diminished  as 
they  were  by  his  overwhelming  grief. 
Seeing  the  poor  man  so  dejected,  the 
pupils  and  the  theatrical  folk — to  aU  of 
whom  Schmucke  had  communicated  the 
fact  of  Pons's  illness — asked  him  about 
the  health  of  the  patient ;  and  so  pro- 
found was  the  sorrow  of  the   old  pianist 


that  even  the  indifferent  assumed  that 
affectation  of  concern  which  is  the  Pari- 
sian's tribute  to  capital  catastrophes. 

As  with  Pons  so  Avith  Schmucke,  the 
vital  principle  itself  was  attacked.  Nor 
was  it  only  from  his  own  pangs  that 
Schmucke  suffered  :  he  suffered  also  with 
his  suffering  friend.  His  mind  was  so  full 
on  the  subject  that  he  would  talk  about 
Pons  during  a  full  half  of  the  time  that 
should  have  been  devoted  to  the  lesson  he 
was  giving ;  he  would  so  naively  break  olf 
in  the  middle  of  an  explanation  to  ask 
himself  how  his  fiiend  was  faring,  that 
his  youthful  pupil  would  find  herself  list- 
ening to  a  disquisition  on  Pons's  ailments. 
In  the  interval  between  two  lessons, 
Schmucke  would  rush  off  to  the  Rue  de 
Normandie  to  spend  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
by  the  bedside  of  his  friend.  Scared  at 
the  emptiness  of  the  joint  cash-box,  and 
alarmed  by  Madame  Cibot,  who  during 
the  last  fortnight  had  been  doing  her  best 
to  swell  the  expenses  of  the  sick-room,  the 
old  pianist  found  that  a  new-born  coui'age, 
for  which  he  would  never  have  given  him- 
self credit,  enabled  him  to  rise  superior  to 
his  troubles.  Now,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  whole  course  of  his  career,  he  wanted 
to  get  money  ;  in  order  that  there  mig-ht 
be  no  dearth  of  it  at  home.  When  one  of 
his  3'oung  \^(iy  pupils,  who  felt  a  genuine 
pity  for  the  two  friends,  asked  Schmucke 
how  he  could  bear  to  leave  Pons  all  alone, 
he  replied  with  the  sublime  simplicity  of 
the  dupe  :  "  Matemoiselle,  we  have  Mon- 
tame  Zibod !  ein  treasure !  ein  bearl ! 
Bons  is  gared  for  as  if  he  were  ein 
brinze!"  Now,  dii'ectly  Schmucke  was 
engaged  in  trotting  from  street  to  street. 
Dame  Cibot  became  mistress  of  the  apart- 
ments and  the  invalid.  How  was  it  pos- 
sible for  Pons,  who  had  eaten  nothing  for 
a  fortnight,  who  was  lying  prostrate  in 
his  bed,  who  was  so  feeble  that,  whenever 
the  bed  required  making,  Madame  Cibot 
was  obliged  to  raise  him  in  her  arms  and 
place  him  in  an  easA'-chair — how  was  it 
possible  for  Pons  to  keep  a  watchful  eye 
upon  that  self-styled  guardian  angel  ?  As 
a  matter  of  course.  Dame  Cibot  paid  her 
visit  to  Elie  Magus  while  Schmucke  was 
at  breakfast. 


I 


COUSIN    PONS. 


Ill 


She  was  back  ag-ain  in  time  to  witness 
the  parting:  between  Schmucke  and  the 
patient  ;  for  since  the  revelation  of  Pons's 
potential  wealth.  Dame  Cibot  had  stuck 
closely  to  her  old  bachelor ;  she  brooded 
over  him.  Ensconced  in  a  snug'  arm- 
chair at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  she  treated 
Pons — by  way  of  amusing-  him — to  a  flood 
of  gossip  such  as  women  of  her  stamp  ex- 
cel in.  She  had  grown  coaxing,  g-entle, 
attentive,  anxious,  and  had  thus,  with 
Machiavellian  skill,  obtained  an  influence 
over  Pons's  mind,  as  we  shall  see. 


XV. 


PRATTLE     AND     POLITICS     OF     OLD 
PORTRESSES. 

Scared  by  the  prediction  that  was  the 
outcome  of  Madame  Fontaine's  manipula- 
tion of  the  grand  pack.  Dame  Cibot  had 
entered  into  a  compact  with  herself  to 
secure  the  object  that  she  had  in  view — 
namely,  a  legacy  under  Pons's  will — hy 
.gentle  measures,  and  without  resorting 
to  overt  acts  of  villainy.  During  a  period 
of  ten  years  she  had  remained  ignorant 
of  the  value  of  the  Pons  Museum,  and 
now,  finding'  that  the  accumulated  at- 
tachment, integrity,  and  disinterested- 
ness which  she  had  displaj'ed  during 
those  years  was  standing  to  her  credit, 
she  resolved  to  discount  this  magnificent 
security.  Sincp  the  day  when  Remo- 
nencq,  by  using  a  phrase  that  w'as  elo- 
quent of  g-old,  had  hatched  in  the  heart 
of  this  woman  a  sei'pent  which  had  lain 
there  in  its  shell  for  five-and-twenty  j-ears 
— namely,  the  desire  to  be  rich — she  had 
nourished  the  reptile  on  all  the  evil  leaven 
which  lurks  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  the 
human  soul.  We  shall  now  see  how  she 
proceeded  to  carry  out  the  counsel  which 
tlie  serpent  was  hissing'  into  her  ear. 

'•  Well !  and  has  our  cherub  drank 
plenty  of  stuff  ?  Is  he  any  better?  "  she 
inquired  of  Schmucke. 

"  He  is  not  going'  on  well,  not  well,  my 
tear  Montame  Zibod,"  replied  the  Ger- 
man, as  he  wiped  away  a  tear. 


"  Bah  !  You  frighten  yourself  need- 
lessly, my  dear  sir.  You  must  take 
things  as  they  come.  If  Cibot  were 
actually  at  the  point  of  death,  I  shouldn't 
be  so  downcast  as  you  are.  Come  !  our 
cherub  has  a  good  constitution ;  and 
then,  you  see,  it  seems  he's  led  a  prudent 
life ;  you  don't  know  what  an  ag'e  people 
as  have  lived  prudently  run  to.  He  is 
very  ill,  that's  for  certain ;  but,  with  the 
care  n'l  take  of  him,  I  shall  manage  to 
pull  him  round.  So  make  your  mind 
easy,  and  go  and  see  after  your  busi- 
ness; I'll  keep  him  company  and  see  as 
he  drinks  his  quarts  of  barley-water." 

'■■  If  it  were  nod  for  you,  I  should  tie 
of  anxiety,"  said  Schmucke,  pressing  the 
hand  of  his  worthy  housekeeper  in  a 
manner  that  was  intended  to  intimate 
his  trust  in  her;  whereupon  Madame 
Cibot  went  into  Pons's  bedroom  wiping 
her  eyes. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Madame  Cibot  ?" 
said  Pons. 

'•'  It's  Monsieur  Schmucke  as  upsets 
me,"  said  the  portress.  "  He  cries  about 
you  as  if  j-ou  were  a  dead  man  !  Now, 
though  true  it  is  that  you're  not  well, 
you're  not  so  bad  that  people  need  cry 
over  you;  but  still  I  feel  it  very  much. 
My  God  !  what  a  fool  I  am  to  be  so  fond 
of  people  and  to  care  more  for  you  than  I 
do  for  Cibot !  For,  after  all,  you're  noth- 
ing to  me;  we're  not  any  ways  related 
to  each  other — except  through  the  first 
woman.  Well,  I  vow  and  declare,  your 
illness  has  given  me  quite  a  turn  :  upon 
my  word  and  honor  it  has.  I'd  stand  to 
have  my  hand  cut  off — my  left  hand,  of 
course — here  under  your  very  nose  if  I 
could  see  you  a-coming'  and  a-going', 
a-eating  and  a-cheating  of  the  dealers 
as  you've  been  n'accustomed  to.  If  I'd 
ha'  had  a  child  I  think  I  should  have 
loved  it  n'as  I  love  you;  there  now! 
Come,  do  drink,  my  pet ;  come  now,  a 
good  glassful.  Will  you  drink,  monsieur  ? 
The  first  thing  Monsieur  Poulain  said 
w;is  :  'If  Monsieur  Pons  don't  want  to 
go  to  Pere-Lachaise.  he  must  drink  as 
many  pailfuls  of  water  as  an  Auvergnat 
sells  in  a  day.'  So  come  now,  drink  I  " 
•'But,  my  good  Cibot,  lam  drinking; 


112 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


I  drink  till  nxy  stomach  is  literally 
drovvBcd." 

"There,  that's  right,"  said  the  por- 
tress, taking'  the  empty  glass.  "  You'll 
got  \v(!ll  if  you  do  that !  Monsieur  Pou- 
lain  had  a  patient  like  yoM  as  was  de- 
serted T)y  his  children,  and  hadn't  no  one 
to  look  after  him,  and  he  died  of  this  same 
complaint,  and  all  for  the  want  of  drink- 
ing !  (So,  you  see,  you  must  drink,  my 
duck !)  Which,  thej'  buried  him,  two 
months  a  gone  !  Do  you  know  that  if 
you  was  to  die,  my  dear  sir,  you'd  take 
that  worthy  man,  Monsieur  Schmucke, 
with  you  ;  'pon  my  word  and  honor,  he's 
just  like  a  child,  he  is.  Ah  !  how  he  does 
love  you,  the  dear  lamb  !  No  !  no  woman 
loves  a  man  so  much  as  that.  He's  quite 
lost  all  relisli  for  his  victuals,  and  he's 
grown  that  thin  within  the  last  fortnight, 
ay,  as  thin  as  t/om  are,  and  you're  naught 
but  skin  and  bone.  It  makes  me  feel  quite 
jealous,  for  I'm  very  fond  of  you  myself ; 
though  I  haven't  come  to  that  yet;  I 
haven't  lost  my  n'appetite  ;  n'on  the  con- 
trarj',  quite  the  reverse.  Forced  as  I  am 
to  keep  on  a-rijnning  up  and  downstairs, 
my  logs  get  so  tired  that  of  an  evening  I 
sink  down  just  like  a  lump  o'  lead.  Then 
there's  that  there  poor  Cibot  of  mine, 
don't  I  neglect  him  for  your  sake,  which 
Mademoiselle  Remonencq  gets  him  his 
A'ictuals,  which  he  grumbles  at  me  be- 
cause they  aren't  nice.  Well,  then,  I 
says  to  him,  as  how  we  ought  to  put  up 
with  things  for  the  sake  of  other  folks, 
and  that  you're  too  ill  to  be  left  alone. 
In  the  first  place,  you're  not  well  enough 
to  do  without  a  nurse !  But  you  don't 
catch  me  allowing  a  nurse  to  come  in 
here,  when  I've  looked  after  j'ou  and  been 
your  housekeeper  myself  these  ten  years. 
And  they  all  so  fond  of  their  stomachs, 
too,  which  they  eat  you  out  of  house  and 
home,  and  want  wine  and  sugar  and  their 
foot-warmei's  and  their  comforts.  And 
then  there  thej^  rob  their  patients  unless 
their  patients  put  them  down  for  some- 
thing in  their  wills.  Just  put  a  nurse 
in  here  to-daj'  and  see  whether  there 
wouldn't  be  a  picture  or  something  else 
missing  to-morrow — " 

"Oh!     Madame    Cibot,"    cried    Pons, 


quite  beside  himself;  "don't  leave   me! 
Don't  let  anything  be  touched  !  " 

"  Here  I  am,"  said  Dame  Cibot;  "and 
here  I'll  stop,  as  long  as  I've  got  anj' 
strength  left.  Make  your  mind  easy ! 
Didn't  Monsieur  Poulain,  who's  got  an 
eye  on  your  treasures  may  be,  didn't  he 
want  to  get  a  nurse  for  you  ?  Ah  !  didn't 
I  just  give  him  a  look,  that's  all  ?  •  There's 
no  one  but  me  as'll  suit  Monsieur  Pons,' 
I  says  to  him ;  '  he  knows  my  ways  as  I 
know  his'n.'  And  with  that  he  held  his 
tongue.  But  a  nurse ;  why,  them  nurses 
are  all  of  'em  thieves !  How  I  hates 
them  women  !  I'll  just  show  you  now 
w'hat  schemers  they  are.  Well,  then,  an 
old  gentleman — now  mark  you,  it  was 
Monsieur  Poulain  as  told  me  this — well, 
a  Madame  Sabatier,  a  woman  of  thirty- 
six,  who  once  sold  slippers  at  the  palace 
— 3'ou  must  remember  the  shop  gallerj'' 
at  the  palace  that  has  been  pulled  down  ?  " 
(Pons  nodded  his  head  by  way  of  assent.) 
"Well,  this  woman  then  didn't  get  on 
well  along  of  her  husband,  which  he 
drunk  everything-,  and  died  of  spontane- 
ous imbustion  ;  well,  she  was  a  handsome 
woman  in  her  time,  no  doubt — one  must 
tell  the  truth,  jo\x  know — but  that  did  her 
no  good ;  though  it  is  said  that  she  had 
friends  among  the  advocates.  Well,  as  I 
was  a-sa3ing,  when  she  came  to  grief  she 
took  to  monthly  nursing ;  j'os,  sir,  and 
she  lives  in  the  Rue  Barre  du  Bee.  Wellj 
then,  you  must  know,  she  went  out  to 
nurse  an  n'old  g-entleman,  who'n,  no  of- 
fense to  you,  sir,  had  something  the  mat- 
ter with  his  lurinary  liver,  and  they  used 
to  sound  him,  just  for  all  the  world  as  if 
he'd  been  a  n 'artesian  well ;  which  he 
wanted  so  much  waiting"  on,  that  she  was 
used  to  sleep  on  a  folding-bed  in  his  room. 
Would  you  believe  it  now  ?  But  no  doubt 
you'll  tell  me :  '  Men  have  no  respect  for 
anything  or  anj'body,  they're  so  selfish  ! ' 
Well,  as  she  was  a-talking  to  him — for 
she  was  always  there,  you  understand  ; 
she  cheered  him  up,  told  him  stories, 
made  him  prattle,  just  like  you  and  me 
are  jabbering  away  now ;  well,  she  finds 
out  as  his  nephews— for  the  patient  had 
some  nephews — were  regular  monsters  as 
caused  him  a  lot   of  worry,  and — to  cut 


SCHMUCKE   AND    PoNS 

'  The  flaneurs  of  the  quarter  had  iiick-uanied  them 

'  The  Pair  ot  Nut-Crackers."  " 


Balzac,  Volume  Oue. 


Cofsis  Poms. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


113 


a  long  tale  short — as  it  was  his  nephews 

as  was  the  cause  of  his  illness. 

"  Well,  vay  dear  sir,  she  saved  that  'ere 
gentleman  and  became  his  wife,  and  they 
have  a  child  now  as  is  superb,  and  which 
Madame  Bordevin,  what  keeps  the  butch- 
er's shop  in  the  Rue  Chariot,  which  she's 
related  to  the  lady,  stood  god-mother. 
There's  luck  for  you,  now  !  As  for  me, 
I'm  married  ;  but  I  haven't  got  no  child, 
and  I  must  say  it's  all  Cibot's  fault,  for 
he's  overfond  of  me ;  for  if  I  wished — but 
I'll  say  no  more.  What  on  earth  would 
have  become  of  us,  me  and  my  Cibot,  if 
we'd  had  a  familj-,  us  as  haven't  a  half- 
penny that  we  can  call  our  own,  n'after 
thirty  years'  honesty,  my  dear  sir  ?  But 
what  consoles  me  is  as  I  haven't  a  far- 
thing of  any  one  else's  money ;  I've  never 
wronged  nobody.  Look  here,  now,  let's 
just  suppose,  which  I'm  free  to  saj' it,  see- 
ing as  how  you'll  be  upon  j'our  pegs  again 
in  six  weeks'  time,  a-sauntering  along  the 
boulevards;  well,  then,  we'll  suppose  as 
you  puts  me  down  for  something  in  your 
will ;  well,  I  should  never  rest  till  I"d 
found  out  your  lawful  heirs  so  as  I  might 
give  it  back  to  them  ;  I've  such  a  horror 
of  money  as  I  don't  earn  by  the  sweat  of 
my  brow.  You'll  say  to  me,  no  doubt : 
'  Don't  you  go  for  to  torment  yourself  like 
that.  Mistress  Cibot ;  you've  worked  hard 
for  it ;  you've  looked  after  them  two  gen- 
tlemen n'as  if  they'd  been  your  own  chil- 
dren ;  you've  saved  'em  as  much  as  a 
thousand  francs  a  j^ear.'  For  do  you 
know,  sir,  there's  many  a  cook  as  'ud 
have  laid  by  a  snug  ten  thousand  francs 
by  this  time,  if  they'd  stood  in  my  shoes. 
'Well,  then,  sure  enough,  it's  only  fair  as 
this  good  gentleman  should  leave  you  a 
little  annuity.'  I'm  only  a-supposing  as 
some  one  was  to  saj'  that  to  me,  you 
know.  Well,  no ;  for  my  part,  I'm  quite 
disinterested ;  I  can't  understand  how 
there  can  be  such  things  as  women  as 
do  good  with  an  eye  to  the  main  chance. 
Why,  that  isn't  doing  good  at  all ;  is  it, 
my  dear  sir?  It's  true  as  I  don't  go  to 
church  :  I've  no  time  to  go  ;  but  my  con- 
science tells  me  what  it's  right  to  do,  for 
all  that.  Now,  don't  go  for  to  toss  your- 
self about  like  that,  my  kitten  !    Don't  j 


scratch  yourself !  My  God,  how  yellow 
you  are,  to  be  sure  ;  why,  you're  that  3-el- 
low  you're  wellnigh  brown.  What  a  queer 
thing  it  is  that  in  twenty  days  folks  should 
turn  as  yellow  as  a  lemon  I  Well,  as  I 
was  a-saying,  honesty  is  the  poor  man's 
store  !  one  mtist  have  something  to  bless 
themselves  with!  Well,  now,  even  sup- 
posing as  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  I 
should  be  the  very  first  to  tell  you  as  j-ou 
ought  to  give  all  your  belongings  to  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke.  It's  your  duty  so  to  do; 
for  he's  j^our  whole  family  all  in  one ! 
Ah !  and  he  loves  you  too,  he  does,  just 
as  a  dog  loves  his  master." 

"Oh,  yes!"  said  Pons.  "He  is  the 
only  person  who  has  ever  loved  me  in  the 
whole  course  of  my  life — " 

"  Oh,  monsieur  !  "  cried  Dame  Cibot. 
"  That's  not  at  all  pretty  of  you.  What 
about  me  ?    Don't  I  love  you  ?  " 

"I  don't  say  that,  mj'  dear  Madame 
Cibot." 

"  There  now,  aren't  you  just  a-going 
for  to  treat  me  as  if  I  was  n'a  mere  ser- 
vant, a  common  cook,  just  as  if  I'd  no 
feelings  whatever  ?  Oh  !  my  God  !  Work 
yourself  fit  to  split  for  a  couple  of  old 
fellows  for  eleven  years  !  Do  naught  but 
look  after  their  comforts  !— which  I  ran- 
sacked ten  green-grocers'  shops  and  got 
myself  becalled  all  sorts  of  names  just  to 
get  you  good  fromage  de  Brie,  which  I 
went  all  the  way  to  the  market  to  get  yon 
fresh  butter  ;  yes,  and  j-ou  may  take  sucli 
care  of  everything  ;  which  in  all  these  ten 
years  I  haven't  so  much  as  broken  or 
chipped  a  single  thing ;  yes,  and  you  may 
be  like  a  mother  is  to  her  childi-en  ! — and 
what  does  it  all  come  to  ?  Why  !  you 
hears  a  'Mj'  dear  Madame  Cibot,'  which 
just  shows  you  as  there  isn't  one  spark  of 
feeling  for  you  in  the  buzzom  of  the  old 
gentleman  as  you've  been  a  nursing  like 
you'd  nurse  the  son  of  a  king:  for  the 
little  king  of  Rome  was  never  looked 
after  as  j-ou've  been — will  you  make  me 
a  bet  that  he  was  as  well  looked  after  as 
you  are  ? — well,  the  proof  is  that  he  died 
in  the  very  prime  of  his  life.  Look  you, 
sir,  you  aren't  just — you're  ungrateful  I 
just  because  I'm  nothing  but  a  poor 
poi'tress.      Ah  !     m^*    God  I     even     you 


114 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


too  think  as  we're  not  a  bit  better 
than  dogs — " 

'•But,  my  clear  Madame  Cibot— " 

"  Come,  now,  you're  a  learned  man ; 
now  just  explain  to  me  how  'tis  us  poor 
porter-folk  are  treated  like  that ;  that  no 
one  gives  us  credit  for  having  any  feel- 
ings at  all,  and  that  we're  despised  at  a 
time  when  there's  so  much  talk  about 
equality.  Ain't  I  as  good  as  any  other 
woman  ?  Me  as  was  one  of  the  prettiest 
women  in  Paris,  and  as  was  called  the 
handsome  oyster  girl,  and  received  a 
declaration  of  love  seven  or  eight  times 
in  the  course  of  the  day  ?  Ay,  and  if  I 
cared  so  to  do,  even  now !  Whj-,  look 
you,  sir ;  you  know  that  dwarf  of  an  old 
iron-dealer  what  lives  near  the  entrance- 
gate  ;  well,  if  I  were  a  widow,  which,  in 
course,  is  n'only  a  supposition,  he'd  marry 
me  with  his  eyes  shut ;  for  he's  opened 
them  so  wide  at  me  that  he's  never  tired 
of  saying  to  me  :  '  Oh  !  what  lovely  arms 
you've  got,  Madame  Cibot.  I  dreamed, 
only  last  night,  that  they  was  bread  and 
that  I  was  butter  spread  upon  'em.'  Look 
here,  sir;  there's  a  pair  of  arms  for  you  !" 
And  suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  Mad- 
ame Cibot  turned  up  her  sleeve,  and  dis- 
{ilayed  the  finest  arm  that  could  possibly 
be  seen,  an  arm  that  was  as  white  and 
fresh  as  the  hand  itself  was  red  and 
wrinkled — a  plump,  round,  dimpled  arm, 
which,  denuded  of  its  case  of  common 
merino,  as  a  sword  is  drawn  from  its 
scabbard,  was  enough  to  dazzle  Pons, 
who  scarcely  ventured  to  do  more  than 
glance  at  it — "  Yes,"  pursued  the  dame, 
"  and  an  arm  as  has  opened  as  many 
hearts  as  my  knife  did  oj'sters  !  Well, 
that  arm  belongs  to  Cibot ;  and  I've  done 
wrong  to  neglect  the  poor  dear  man,  who'd 
throw  himself  overa  precipidge  at  the  first 
word  as  I  uttered,  for  your  sake, monsieur, 
you  as  calls  me  my  dear  Madame  Cibot, 
when  I'd  do  unpossibilities  for  you — " 

"But  do  listen  to  me,"  said  the  sick 
man  ;  "I  can't  call  you  my  mother  or 
my  wife — " 

"  No,  never  again,  as  long  as  I  lives, 
nor  as  long  as  I  breathe,  will  I  get  at- 
tached to  nobody — " 

"But  do  let  me  speak,"  pleaded  Pons. 


"Look  you,  in  the  first  place,  I  have 
spoken  to  Schmucke  !  " 

"Ah,  Monsieur  Schmucke!  Now  there's 
a  heart  for  you!"  said  she.  "Yes,  fte 
loves  me,  he  does;  because  he's  poor. 
It's  monej"-  as  makes  people  unfeeling; 
and  you  are  rich  !  Well,  then,  have  a 
nurse,  and  see  what  a  life  she'll  lead  you  I 
Why,  she'll  torment  you  like  a  cock- 
chafer— if  the  doctor  says  that  you  must 
be  made  drink,  she'll  give  you  nothing  but 
solid  food  ;  she'll  just  bury  you  first  and 
rob  you  afterward  !  You  don't  deserve 
to  have  a  Madame  Cibot !  Come,  now  ! 
when  Monsieur  Poulain  comes  to  see  you, 
you  just  ask  him  for  a  nurse  !  " 

"But  in  the  name  of  all  that's  sacred, 
listen  to  me  ! "  cined  the  indignant  pa- 
tient. '•  I  did  not  refer  to  women  when 
I  spoke  of  my  friend  Schmucke,  did  I  ? 
I  know  well  enough  that  you  and  he  are 
the  only  two  persons  who  sincerely  love 
me — " 

"  Will  you  just  have  the  goodness  not 
to  flare  up  like  that?"  exclaimed  Mad- 
ame Cibot,  making  a  rush  at  Pons,  and 
compelling  him,  by  main  force,  to  lie  down 
again. 

"■  But  how  can  I  help  being  fond  of 
you  ?  "  said  poor  Pons. 

"  You  are  fond  of  me,  then,  really  ? 
Come,  come,  j'ou  must  excuse  me,  mon- 
sieur," said  she,  weeping  and  wiping  her 
eyes.  "  Yes,  yes,  you  love  me,  as  you 
might  love  a  servant  to  whom  you  leave 
an  annuity  of  six  hundred  francs,  just  as 
you  might  throw  a  bit  of  bread  to  a  dog." 

"  Oh  !  Madame  Cibot,"  cried  Pons  ; 
"what  do  3'ou  take  me  for  ?  You  do  not 
know  me  !  " 

"Ah!  then  you  love  me  more  than 
that?"  resumed  Madame  Cibot;  "you 
love  your  good  stout  Cibot  like  a  mother? 
Well,  that's  just  how  it  is  ;  I  am  your 
mother,  and  you  two  are  just  mj--  chil- 
dren I  Ah  !  if  I  only  knew  who  it  is  that 
has  caused  j'ou  all  this  trouble,  I'd  get 
myself  sent  to  the  assizes,  or  even  to  the 
police-court,  for  I'd  tear  their  eyes  out 
for  'em.  Those  people  deserve  to  be  put 
to  death  at  St.  James's  barrier;  and 
even  that's  too  good  for  such  miscreated 
wretches  !     You  so  kind-hearted  and  so 


COUSIN    POXS. 


115 


gentle,  for  you  n'have  a  heart  of  gold  : 
you  were  created  and  sent  into  the  world 
to  make  some  woman  happy — j'es,  you 
would  have  made  her  happy,  that  you 
would— any  one  can  see  that ;  you  are 
just  cut  out  for  it.  Now,  as  for  mj'self, 
when  I  saw  how  you  jogged  along  with 
Monsieur  Schmucke,-  says  I  to  myself : 
'  Yes  !  Monsieur  Pons  has  missed  his  vo- 
cation ;  he  was  cut  out  to  he  a  good  hus- 
band.' Come  now,  you  are  fond  of  the 
ladies,  aren't  j'ou  ?  " 

"Ah!  yes,"  said  Pons;  "and  I  never 
met  a  woman  who  loved  me — " 

"  Really  now,  you  don't  mean  to  say 
so  ?  "  cried  Dame  Cibot,  as,  with  an  en- 
ticing air,  she  went  up  to  Pons  and  seized 
his  hand;  "j'ou  don't  know  what  it  is 
to  n'have  a  sweetheart  ?  Is  it  possible  ? 
Now,  for  my  part,  if  I  were  in  your  place, 
I  shouldn't  like  to  quit  this  world  for 
n'another  without  having  known  what's 
the  greatest  n'happiness  on  n'earth.  Poor 
duck  !  If  I  weren't  what  I  have  been, 
upon  my  word  and  honor  I'd  leave  Cibot 
for  your  sake  !  Whj',  with  such  a  nose 
as  3'ou  n'have — for  you  n'have  a  very 
fine  nose — how  did  you  manage,  my  poor 
cherub  ?  You  will  tell  me,  perhaps,  as 
it  isn't  n'every  woman  who  knows  how 
to  choose  a  man,  n'and  it's  a  vast  pity  as 
they  should  marry  as  they  do,  at  random  ; 
it  really  is.  Now,  for  my  part,  I  thought 
as  you  n'had  sweethearts  by  the  dozen, 
ballet-girls,  n'actresses,  and  duchesses. 
Yes,  when  I  saw  you  a-going  out,  which 
I  would  say  to  Cibot :  '  Look,  there's 
Monsieur  Pons  a-going  to  look  after  the 
ladies.'  Upon  my  word  and  honor  that's 
exactly  what  I  used  to  say,  so  firm  was 
my  belief  as  you  was  a  favorite  with  the 
women  !  Why,  you  were  sent  into  the 
world  to  love  and  to  be  loved  !  I  could 
see  that  much,  look  you,  my  dear  little 
sir,  the  very  day  as  j^ou  first  dined  here. 
Ah !  wasn't  your  n'heart  full  when  you 
saw  the  pleasure  as  you  was  a-giving  to 
Monsieur  Schmucke !  And  him,  too,  as 
was  a-crying  over  it  even  the  next  day 
when  he  says  to  me:  'Montame  Zibod, 
he  tined  here  ! '  Which  I  declare  that  I 
cried  likewise,  like  a  fool  as  I  was.  Ah  ! 
and  how  cut  up  he  was  when  you  began 


your  town-skippings  again !  and  took  to 
dining  out  again  !  Poor  man  !  never  was 
such  distress  seen  !  Ah !  right  you  are 
indeed  to  make  him  your  heir !  Why, 
he's  as  good  as  an  entire  family,  the  dear 
good  man  !  Don't  j-ou  forget  him ;  for, 
if  you  do,  God  won't  admit  you'n  into 
paradise;  for  He  won't  admit  any  one 
n'as  hasn't  shown  themselves  grateful  to 
their  friends,  by  leaving  them  legacies." 

Pons  made  some  vain  attempts  to  re- 
ply ;  but  Dame  Cibot  talked  as  the  wind 
blows.  We  have  discovered  a  method  of 
stopping  steam-engines ;  but  it  will  puz- 
zle inventive  genius  to  find  out  a  method 
of  stopping  the  tongue  of  a  portress. 

"  I  know  exactly  what  you're  going  to 
say,"  continued  she.  "But  making  one's 
will,  when  one  is  ill,  doesn't  kill  a  body  ; 
and  if  I  wei-e  in  your  shoes,  I  wouldn't, 
in  case  of  an  n'accident,  leave  the  poor 
lamb  to  take  care  of  himself;  for  that's 
just  what  he  is — the  good  creature  of  the 
good  God ;  he  knows  naught  about  any- 
thing. I  wouldn't  leave  him  at  the  mercy 
of  a  pack  of  rascally  men  of  business,  and 
of  j^our  relations,  which  the^-'re  all  a  lot 
of  scums.  See  now,  is  there  a  single  one 
of  them  who  has  been  to  see  you  during 
the  last  three  weeks  ?  And  you  would 
leave  j'our  property  to  them.'  Are  you 
aware  that  what  is  here  is  worth  the 
trouble  of  leaving  to  some  one  ?  at  least 
so  they  say." 

"  Oh  !  I  know  that,"  said  Pons. 

"Remonencq,  who  knows  you  are  an 
amateur,  and  is  a  dealer  himself,  says  as 
he  would  willingly  pay  you  an  annuity  of 
thirty  thousand  francs,  in  order  to  have 
your  pictures  when  you're  dead  and  gone. 
There's  a  bit  of  business  for  you  !  If  I 
were  you,  I'd  close  with  the  offer !  But 
I  believed  that  he  was  making  game  of 
me  when  he  said  that.  You  ouglit  to 
n'inform  Monsieur  Schmucke  of  the  value 
of  all  these  things ;  for  he's  a  man  as  is 
as  easilj'  deceived  as  a  child  ;  he  hasn't 
the  faintest  notion  of  the  value  of  these 
fine  things  of  j-ours  !  He  has  so  little 
idea  of  it  that  lie  would  go  and  give  'em 
all  awaj'  for  a  mere  nothing ;  unless  he 
kept  'em,  out  of  pure  love  to  you,  all  his 
life;  that  is  to  say,  if  he  survives  you; 


116 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


but  j-our  death  will  be  the  death  of  him  ! 
But  I  shuU  be  here  !  Vll  defend  him 
against  the  whole  world  ;  me  and  Cibot 
tos-ether." 

"Dear  Madame  Cibot!"  exclaimed 
Pons,  quite  touched  by  this  terrible 
chatter  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  im- 
bued with  the  unaffected  feeling-  charac- 
teristic of  the  poor.  "  What  would  have 
become  of  me  but  for  you  and  Schmucke  ?" 

'•'Ah,  yes.  We  n'are  really  the  only 
friends  you  have  on  earth.  That's  quite 
true  !  But  two  kind  hearts  are  worth 
all  the  relations  in  the  world.  Don't  talk 
to  me  about  relations  !  They  are  like  the 
tongue,  as  the  old  actor  says,  a  world  of 
goodness  and  iniquitJ^  Where  are  these 
relations  of  yours  ?  Have  you  got  any 
relations  ?  If  you  have,  I  never  set  ej^es 
on  'em." 

"It  is  they  who  have  laid  me  on  this 
bed  of  sickness  !  "  cried  poor  Pons,  with 
profound  bitterness. 

'•Ah  !  then  you  have  some  relations  !  " 
cried  Madame  Cibot,  springing  up  as  if 
the  armchair  in  which  she  was  sitting 
had  been  of  iron  and  had  suddenly  be- 
come red-hot.  "Ah,  well!  they  are 
mighty  well-bred  people,  these  relations 
of  yours,  I  must  say  !  Why,  these  twenty 
da3-s,  j-cs,  these  twenty  days  this  very 
morning,  have  you  been  Ij'ing  on  your 
death-bed,  and  they  haven't  come  to  in- 
quire about  you  yet !  That  coffee's  a  lit- 
tle too  strong,  that  is  !  Why,  if  I  were 
in  your  place,  I'd  rather  leave  my  money 
to  the  Foundling  Hospital  than  give  them 
a  single  farthing  I  " 

"  Well,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot,  I  in- 
tended to  leave  all  I  possess  to  my  first 
cousin  once  removed,  the  daughter  of  my 
first  cousin.  President  Camusot ;  you 
know  whom  I  mean — the  judge  who  came 
here  one  morning  about  two  months 
ago-" 

"Oh,  yes!  the  stout  little  man  what 
sent  his  servants  here  to  beg  your  pardon 
— for  his  wife's  stupidity- — yes,  and  didn't 
the  ladj^'s-maid  ask  me  a  lot  of  questions 
about  you,  the  conceited  old  minx;  I 
should  have  just  liked  to  dust  her  velvet 
mantle  for  her  with  my  broomstick  !  A 
lad^-'s-maid  with  a  velvet  mantle,  indeed  ! 


Was  such  a  thing  ever  n'heard  of?  No  ! 
upon  my  honor  the  world  is  turned  topsy- 
turvy !  What  are  revolutions  made  for, 
n'l  should  like  to  know  ?  Dine  twice  a 
day,  if  you  can,  and  welcome,  you  scoun- 
drels of  plutoscraps  !  But  what  /say  is 
that  the  laws  are  n'useless,  that  nothing 
is  sacred,  if  Louis  Philippe  doesn't  keep 
folks  in  their  proper  places  ;  for  surely,  if 
we  n'are  n'all  equal,  as  we  n'are — ^^aren't 
we  ? — a  lady's-maid  has  no  right  to  n'have 
a  velvet  mantle,  when  here  am  I,  Madame 
Cibot,  with  a  character  for  thirty  years' 
honesty,  haven't  got  no  velvet  mantle ! 
It's  a  fine  thing,  1 7nust  say  !  We  n'ought 
to  be  n'able  to  tell  what  folks  arc  \)y  their 
dress.  A  lady's-maid  is  only  a  ladj''s- 
maid,  when  n'all's  said  and  done;  just  as 
I'm  only  a  portress.  What  do  we  n'have 
spinach-seed  epaulets  n'in  the  milingtaiy 
for'n  ?  Every  man  to  his  grade,  say  I ! 
Now,  shall  I  just  let  you'n  into  the  secret 
of  3,11  this  ?  Well,  France  has  just  gone 
to  perdition,  that's  the  long-  and  short  of 
it  !  Now,  under  the  Emperoi- — eh,  mon- 
sieur ? — things  were  very  differentlj'  man- 
aged. Well,  as  I  was  a-saj'ing  to  Cibot : 
'Now,  look  you,  a  famil}^  as  allows  its 
lady's-maid  to  wear  velvet  mantles  must 
be  a  bowelless  lot — " 

"Bowelless!  Yes;  that's  the  very 
word,"  said  Pons ;  and  thereupon  he 
proceeded  to  relate  his  grievances  and 
troubles  to  Madame  Cibot,  who  exploded 
with  invectives  against  Pons's  relatives, 
exhibited,  as  sentence  by  sentence  of  the 
sad  recital  fell  from  his  lips,  the  most 
marked  s^nnpathj',  and  wound  up  by 
bursting  into  a  flood  of  tears ! 

In  order  to  understand  this  sudden  in- 
timacy between  the  old  musician  and 
Madame  Cibot,  it  will  suffice  for  the 
reader  to  picture  to  himself  the  situation 
of  a  bachelor,  who,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  is  attacked  by  a  serious  illness 
and  stretched  upon  a  sick  bed.  There  he 
lies,  alone  in  the  wide  world,  thrown  en- 
tirely upon  his  own  resources,  condemned 
to  get  through  the  da^-  as  best  he  can, 
without  any  extraneous  aid,  and  finding 
the  hours  pass  all  the  more  slowly,  in 
that  he  is  the  victim  of  the  indefinable 
discomforts  of  hepatitis— sl  disorder  that 


COUSIN    PONS. 


117 


is  enough  to  cast  a  black  shadow  upon  the 
very  brightest  existence.  Cut  off  from 
his  numerous  occupations,  the  patient 
falls  into  what  may  be  termed  the  atro- 
phy of  Paris ;  he  regrets  all  that  that 
city  offers  gratis  to  the  ej^es  and  ears  of 
its  denizena.  The  deep  and  tenebrous 
solitude  that  surrounds  him,  his  com- 
plaint— a  complaint  that  tells  upon  the 
moral,  more  even  than  on  the  physical 
man,  the  emptiness  of  the  life  he  leads, 
all  combine  to  induce  the  solitary  bach- 
elor (especially  if  his  character  be  nat- 
urally weak  and  his  heart  sensitive  and 
credulous)  to  attach  himself  to  his  nurse, 
just  as  a  drowning  man  clings  to  a  plank. 
Accordingly,  Pons  listened  with  rapture 
to  the  gossip  of  IMadame  Cibot.  To  him, 
Schmucke,  Madame  Cibot  and  Doctor 
Poulain  formed  the  whole  of  humanity, 
in  like  manner  as  his  chamber  was  his 
universe.  If  ox-dinary  patients  invariably 
restrict  their  attention  to  objects  within 
the  immediate  sphere  of  their  observa- 
tion, and  if  their  individuality  exerts  it- 
self in  subordination  to  the  objects  and 
persons  by  which  they  are  surrounded, 
judge  to  what  straits  an  old  bachelor, 
whose  affections  are  unengaged  and  who 
has  never  known  what  love  is,  may,  under 
similar  circumstances,  be  reduced.  After 
a  three  weeks'  illness.  Pons  had  arrived 
at  such  a  pass  that  he  would,  at  times, 
regret  not  having  married  Madeleine  Vi- 
vet !  Can  it  then  be  matter  of  surprise, 
that,  during  these  weeks,  Madame  Cibot 
made  great  progress  in  the  good  graces 
of  the  invalid  who,  but  for  her,  would 
have  given  himself  up  for  lost ;  for  as  to 
Schmucke,  he  was  simply  a  second  Pons 
to  the  poor  patient.  The  wonderful  art 
— and  it  was  unconscious  art^of  Madame 
(yibot  consisted  in  this ;  that  she  gave 
expression' to  Pons's  own  idea. 

"Ah!  there  is  the  doctor,"  cried  she, 
hearing  the  bell  ring  ;  and  so  saying  she 
left  Pons  alone ;  for  the  ring  told  her  that 
the  Jew  and  Remonencq  had  arrived. 

"Don't  make  a  noise,  gentlemen," 
said  she;  "so  as  he  mayn't  hear  any- 
thing ;  for  wherever  his  treasure  is  in 
question,  he's  as  touchj'  as  a  man  can 
be." 


'•  Oh !  a  mere  walk  round  will  be  suf- 
ficient," replied  the  Jew,  who  was  armed 
with  his  magnifying  lens  and  an  opera- 
glass. 


XVI. 


A   COUNCIL   OF   CORRUPTION. 

The  salon  containing  the  main  portion 
of  the  Pons  Museum  was  one  of  those  old 
salons  that  the  architects  employed  by 
the  ancient  nobility  of  France  used  to 
design.  This  salon  was  twentj'-five  feet 
wide,  thirty  feet  long,  and  thirteen  feet  in 
height.  Pons's  pictures,  sixty-seven  in 
number,  were  all  hung  upon  the  four 
walls  of  this  paneled  chamber,  whose 
panels  were  painted  white  and  gold, 
though  the  white  had  turned  j'ellow  and 
the  gold  red  beneath  the  touch  of  time, 
and  thus  harmonized  with  the  pictures 
instead  of  marring  their  effect.  Fourteen 
statues,  of  which  some  stood  upon  columns 
and  some  on  buhl  pedestals,  adorned  the 
corners  of  the  room  and  the  spaces  be- 
tween the  pictures ;  while  carved  ebony 
sideboards,  of  trulj^  regal  richness,  lined 
the  walls,  breast  high.  These  sideboards 
held,  the  curiosities  ;  w-hile  a  range  of  cre- 
dences, made  of  carved  wood,  occupied  the 
middle  of  the  salon  and  offered  to  the 
eye  of  the  spectator  the  rarest  products 
of  human  skill,  ivory-work,  wood-work, 
bronzes,  enamels,  jewelry,  porcelain,  etc., 
etc. 

Inimediatelj'  on  entering  this  sanctum, 
the  Jew  walked  straight  up  to  four  mas- 
terpieces, which  he  recognized  as  the 
gems  of  the  collection  and  as  the  pro- 
ductions of  masters  of  whose  work  he 
had  no  specimens.  These  four  pictures 
were  to  Elie  Magus  what  those  desid- 
erata which  send  the  naturalist  scamper- 
ing from  east  to  Occident,  through  tropic, 
desert,  pampas,  savannah  and  '•  forest 
primeval "  are  to  the  naturalist. 

The  first  of  these  pictures  was  a  Sebas- 
tian del  Piombo,  the  second  a  Fra  Bar- 
tolomeo  della  Porta,  the  third  a  landscape 
by  Hobbema,  and  the  fourth,  the  portrait 
of  a  woman  by  Albert  Durer— four  dia- 


118 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


monds  !  In  the  domain  of  painting-,  Se- 
bastian del  Piombo  is,  as  it  were,  a  lu- 
minous point,  in  which  three  schools  of 
painting-  meet  and  displaj'  their  most  re- 
markable qualities.  This  artist  was  a 
"Venetian  painter,  who  went  to  Rome  for 
the  purpose  of  catching  the  style  of  Ra- 
phael, under  the  tuition  of  Michael  An- 
g-elo,  who  wanted  to  make  Piombo  Ra- 
phael's rival,  so  that  Angelo  might,  in 
the  person  of  one  of  his  lieutenants,  wage 
war  with  the  sovereign  pontiff  of  the  art 
of  painting.  Thus,  in  the  few  pictures 
which  this  indolent  man  of  genius  conde- 
scended to  paint,  pictures  whose  cartoons 
were,  it  is  said,  designed  by  Michael  An- 
gelo himself,  Piombo  combined  the  color- 
ing of  the  Venetian  school,  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Florentine  school,  and  the 
style  of  Raphael.  To  what  perfection 
Sebastian  del  Piombo,  armed  as  he  was 
with  this  triple  power,  managed  to  at- 
tain, may  be  learned  from  a  careful  study 
of  his  portrait  of  Baccio  Bandinelli  in  the 
Paris  Museum.  That  portrait  may  safely 
be  compared  with  Titian's  "Man  with  a 
Glove,"  with  the  "Portrait  of  an  Old 
Man"  (in  which  Raphael  has  united  his 
own  excellence  to  that  of  Correggio),  and 
with  the  "  Charles  VIII."  of  Leonar-do  da 
Vinci.  Piorabo's  picture  will  lose  nothing 
by  the  comparison.  These  four  pearls  are 
equal  in  water,  in  orience,  in  roundness, 
in  brilliance,  and  in  value.  Human  art 
can  go  no  further.  In  these  productions 
it  is  superior  even  to  nature  itself,  which 
gave  to  the  original  but  an  ephemeral 
existence. 

Now,  Pons  possessed  a  picture  painted 
by  this  great  genius,  Piombo;  another 
gem  from  his  imperishable,  but  incurably 
indolent,  pallet.  This  picture  was  a 
"Knight  of  Malta  Praying."  It  was  on 
slate;  and  in  point  of  freshness,  finish, 
and  depth  of  treatment,  superior  even  to 
the  portrait  of  Baccio  Bandinelli.  The 
Fra  Bartolomeo  was  a  picture  of  the  Holj' 
Family-,  and  might,  with  many  a  connois- 
seur, have  passed  for  a  picture  by  Raphael. 
The  Hobbema  would  have  fetched  sixtj' 
thousand  francs  in  the  auction-room.  As 
'  for  the  Albert  Durer,  this  "  Portrait  of  a 
Woman"  was  similar  to  the  celebrated 


Holzschuer  of  Nuremberg,  for  which  the 
kings  of  Bavaria,  of  Holland  and  of  Prus- 
sia, at  various  times,  offered  two  hundred 
thousand  francs,  in  vain.  Is  this  picture 
a  portrait  of  the  wife  or  daughter  of  the 
Chevalier  Holzschuer,  the  friend  of  Albert 
Durer  ?  This  hj^pothesis  would  seem  to  be 
a  certainty' ;  for  the  woman  in  Pons's  pict- 
ure is  represented  in  such  an  attitude  that 
the  picture  apparently  requires  a  pendant, 
and  the  jiainted  coat  of  arms  is  arranged 
in  the  same  way  in  both  portraits.  Fi- 
nally, the  cetatis  suce  XLI.  is  in  exact 
accordance  with  the  age  indicated  in  the 
portrait  so  religiously  observed  by  the 
house  of  Holzschuer  of  Nuremberg,  and 
of  which  an  engraving  has  recently  been 
completed . 

Tears  stood  in  the  ej'es  of  Elie  Magus 
as  he  turned  them  now  to  one,  now  to  an- 
other, of  these  four  masterpieces. 

"  I  will  give  you  a  bonus  of  two  thou- 
sand francs  for  each  of  tliese  pictures,  if 
you  can  get  them  sold  to  me  for  forty 
thousand  francs  !"  he  whispered  to  Dame 
Cibot,  who  was  amazed  at  this  foi-tune 
which  seemed  to  have  fallen  from  tlie 
clouds. 

The  admiration,  or  —  to  speak  more 
accurately^ — the  delirium,  of  Magus  had 
so  disturbed  his  intellect,  and  so  com- 
pletely routed  his  habitual  cupiditj',  that 
the  Jeio  entirely  disappeared,  as  may  be 
seen. 

"  And  what  am  I  to  have  ?  "  asked 
Remonencq,  who  knew  nothing  about 
pictures. 

"Everything  here  is  of  the  same  cali- 
ber," slyly  whispered  the  Jew  to  Re- 
monencq. "Take  any  ten  pictures,  hap- 
hazard, on  the  same  terms,  and  you  are 
a  made  man  !  " 

These  three  thieves  were  still  gazing  at 
each  other,  under  the  influence  of  that 
delight  which  is  of  all  delights  the  keen- 
est, namely,  the  realization  of  our  hopes 
of  fortune,  when  the  voice  of  the  sick 
man  resounded  in  their  ears,  in  tones 
that  vibrated  like  the  sound-waves  of  a 
bell. 

"Who  is  there  ?  "  cried  Pons. 

"Monsieur!  get  into  bed  again,  at 
once,"   cried    Madame   Cibot,  darting-  up 


COUSIN    PONS. 


119 


to  Pons,  and  forcing  him  to  go  back  to 
bed.  "  How  now  I  Do  j'ou  want  to  kill 
yourself?  "Well,  it  wasn't  Monsieur  Pou- 
lain ;  it's  that  honest  fellow  Remonencq, 
who's  so  uneasy  about  you  that  he's  come 
to  hear  how  you're  a-getting  on.  Folks 
are  so  fond  of  you  that  there's  not  a  soul 
in  the  house  as  isn't  quite  put  out  about 
you.     Pray  what  made  you  take  fright  ?" 

"Why,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are 
several  of  you  in  there,"  said  the  patient. 

"Several!  Come,  now,  that's  rich! 
Why,  you  must  be  dreaming  1  You'll  end 
bj'  going  mad;  'pon  mj'  word  n'and  honor, 
j-ou  will!  Stay  a  moment;  just  look— " 
So  .saying.  Dame  Cibot  flew  to  the  door 
and  opened  it,  making-  a  sign  to  Magus 
to  withdraw,  and  beckoning  Eeraonencq 
forward. 

"  Well !  my  dear  sir,"  said  the  Auverg- 
nat,  taking  the  cue  that  Madame  Cibot 
had  given  him  ;  "  I  am  come  to  hear  how 
3'ou  are  getting  on  ;  for  the  whole  house 
is  in  a  mortal  funk  about  you — No  one 
likes  Death  to  find  his  way  into  a  house  ! 
And,  in  short.  Daddy  Monistrol,  whom 
you  know  well,  directed  me  to  tell  you 
that  if  3'ou  wanted  cash,  he  was  readj'  to 
oblige  you — " 

"  He  has  sent  you  hither  to  steal  a 
glance  at  my  knickknacks,"  said  the  old 
collector,  with  distrustful  acerbity'. 

In  cases  of  liver  disease,  the  patient  al- 
most invariabh-  imbibes  some  special  an- 
tipathy for  the  time  being;  he  concen- 
trates his  ill-humor  on  some  particular 
person  or  thing.  Now  Pons  imagined 
that  people  had  designs  upon  his  treas- 
ure ;  and  his  fixed  idea  was  to  keep  an 
eye  upon  it.  He  would  send  Schmucke 
almost  every  other  minute  to  see  that  no 
one  had  slipped  into  the  sanctuary. 

"  Your  collection  is  certainly  quite  fine 
enough  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  chi- 
neurs,"  replied  Remonencq,  astutely. 
'■  For  my  own  pai't,  I  don't  know  much 
about  the  curiosity  branch  of  high  art, 
but  your  reputation  as  a  connoisseur, 
monsieur,  stands  so  high,  that,  though  I 
don't  know  much  about  such  matters, 
I'm  quite  willing  to  deal  with  you  with 
my  eyes  shut.  If  you  should  be  in  want 
of  money  at  any  time— for  nothing  costs 


so  much  as  these  cursed  illnesses :  why 
there's  my  sister  now,  in  no  more  than 
ten  days,  spent  as  much  as  fifteen-pence 
on  physic,  when  her  blood  was  turned, 
which  she'd  have  got  well  right  enough 
without  it.  The  doctors  are  swindlers, 
who  lake  advantage  of  our  condition 
to—" 

"  Good-by,  monsieur;  thank  j'ou,"  in- 
terrupted Pons,  glancing  uneasily  at  the 
dealer  in  old  iron. 

"I'll  go  as  far  as  the  door  with  him ; 
just  to  see  as  he  doesn't  lay  bis  hand  on 
anj-thing,"  said  Dame  Cibot. 

'■'Yes,  yes,"  said  Pons,  thanking  Mad- 
ame Cibot  with  a  look. 

Madame  Cibot  closed  the  bedroom  door 
behind  her,  and,  by  so  doing,  reawakened 
all  Pons's  suspicions.  She  found  Magus 
standing  motionless  in  front  of  the  four 
pictures.  His  immobility,  his  admiration 
can  be  xmderstood  by  those  only  whose 
minds  are  open  to  the  bemi  ideal,  and 
susceptible  of  those  emotions  which  per- 
fection in  art  is  capable  of  exciting ;  by 
those — and  only  those — who  on  visiting 
the  museum  will  stand  agaze,  for  hours 
together,  before  the  "  Joconda  "  of  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci,  the  '•'  Antiope  "  of  Cor- 
reggio — the  masterpiece  of  that  painter 
—Titian's  mistress,  the  "Holy  Family" 
of  Andrea  del  Sarto,  the  "  Children  sur- 
rounded by  Flowers,"  of  Domenichino, 
the  little  camayeu  of  Raphael,  and  his 
"Portrait  of  an  Old  Man,'' those  great- 
est masterpieces  in  the  whole  range  of 
painting. 

"Steal  away  without  making  any 
noise,"  said  Madame  Cibot. 

Thereupon  the  Jew  slowly  retreated, 
walking  baclrsvard,  and  keeping  his  ej-es 
fixed  upon  the  pictures ;  just  as  a  lover 
keeps  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  sweetheart 
to  whom  he  bids  adieu.  When  Magus 
had  reached  the  landing,  Madame  Cibot, 
in  whose  brain  the  Jew's  silent  contempla- 
tion of  the  pictures  had  given  rise  to  cer- 
tain ideas,  tapped  him  on  his  bony  arm, 
and  said  : 

"You  must  give  me  four  thousand 
francs  for  each  picture !  otherwise  noth- 
ing can  be  done — " 

"I  am  so  poor,"  said  Magus.     "If  I 


120 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


wanl  to  have  these  pictures,  it  is  for  the 
love  of  them  only,  purely  and  simply  for 
the  love  I  bear  to  art,  m^-  pretty  dame  !  " 

"You  are  so  lean,  my  honej',  that  I  can 
quite  understand  j'our  love  for  the  pict- 
ures. But  if  3-ou  don't  promise  me  six- 
teen thousand  francs  to-daj',  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Remonencq  here,  it'll  be  twenty 
thousand  francs  to-morrow." 

"I  promise  you  the  sixteen  thousand," 
replied  the  Jew,  terrified  at  the  rapacitj'^ 
of  this  portress. 

"What  is  there  as  a  Jew  can  swear 
on?"  quoth  Dame  Cibot  to  Remonencq. 

"Oh  !  you  may  trust  him,"  replied  the 
old-iron  dealer;  "he's  as  honest  a  man 
as  I  am  myself." 

"  Well  then !  and  now  for  you,"  said 
the  portress.  "  If  I  g-et  some  of  the  pict- 
ures sold  to  you,  what  will  yoti  g-ive  me  ?  " 

"Half  my  iirofits,"  replied  Remonencq 
promptly. 

"  I  should  prefer  something  dov»-n  ;  I'm 
not  in  business,"  replied  the  portress. 

"You  seem  to  understand  business  un- 
commonly well,"  said  Elie  Magus,  with  a 
smile ;  "  3'ou  would  make  a  famous  trades- 
woman." 

"I  offer  to  take  her  into  partnership, 
person  and  property  both,"  said  the  Au- 
vergnat,  seizing  the  plump  arm  of  Mad- 
ame Cibot  and  patting  it  with  sledge- 
hammer force.  "The  only  capital  I  ask 
for  is  her  good  looks !  You  are  wrong 
to  stick  to  your  Turk  of  a  Cibot  and  his 
needle  !  Can  a  little  porter  enrich  a  fine 
woman  like  you  ?  Ah  !  what  a  figure  you 
would  cut  in  a  shop  on  the  boulevards^ 
surrounded  hy  curiosities,  jabbering  away 
to  the  amateurs  and  wheedling  them  out 
of  their  money !  Turn  your  back  upon 
the  lodge,  as  soon  as  you've  feathered 
your  nest  here,  and  you'll  see  what  we 
two  will  do  between  us  !  " 

"Feathered  my  nest!"  exclaimed 
Dame  Cibot.  "Why,  I'm  incapable  of 
taking  the  worth  of  a  pin  !  Do  you  hear 
what  I  say,  Remonencq  ?  "  cried  the  por- 
tress ;  "■  I'm  known  in  the  quarter  for  an 
honest  woman,  yah  !  " 

As  she  uttered  these  words  her  eyes 
were  all  ablaze. 

"  There,  there  !  make  your  mind  easy," 


said  Elie  Magus.  "  This  Auvergnat  looks 
as  if  he  respected  you  too  well  to  wish  to 
offend  3'ou." 

"  Ah !  wouldn't  she  just  know  how 
to  manage  the  customers  for  you  ! "  ex- 
claimed Remonencq. 

"Now  be  just,  my  little  fellows,"  re- 
joined Madame  Cibot  with  returning 
good  temper  ;  "and  judge  for  yourselves, 
what  my  sitiwation  here  n'is  like.  Here 
n'have  IbcQU  a-wearing  myself  out  these 
ten  years  for  the  sake  of  these  two  old 
boys,  and  never  received  no  more  than  a 
few  fine  words  for  my  pains.  Why,  here's 
Remonencq'll  tell  you,  as  I  feed  the  two 
old  fellows  by  contact,  and  that  I  loses 
from  twenty'  to  thirtj-  sous  a  day  by  it, 
as  all  my  savings  have  gone  that  way ; 
yes,  by  my  mother's  soul — which  she  was 
the  only  parient  as  I  ever  knew — it's  as 
true  as  I'm  a  living  woman,  as  true  n'as 
there's  daylight  aTjove  us  at  this  moment ; 
and  may  my  coffee  be  my  poison  if  I  lie 
to  the  tune  of  one  centime  !  Well,  then, 
here's  one  on  'em  a-going  to  die,  isn't 
there  ?  And  of  these  two  men,  as  I've 
been  a  real  mother  to,  he's  the  richest  I 
Well,  now,  would  you  believe  it,  my  dear 
sir  :  here  have  I  been  a-telling  of  him  as 
he's  a  dead  man,  any  time  this  last  three 
weeks  (for,  you  must  know.  Monsieur 
Poulain  has  given  him  up),  and  yet  the 
shabby  fellow  no  more  saj's  anything 
n'about  mentioning  of  me  in  his  will  than 
as  if  I  was  an  n'utter  stranger  to  him  ! 
Upon  mj'  word  and  n 'honor  we  never 
gets  our  dues  unless  we  takes  'em,  as  I'm 
an  n'honest  woman,  we  don't ;  for  are  you 
a-going  to  put  any  trust  in  the  heirs  ? — 
it's  not  likely  !  Now  just  let  me  tell  you 
— for  hard  words  break  no  bones — all 
people  are  scoundrels  !  " 

"Right  you  are,"  said  Elie  Magus, 
grimly  ;  "  and  'tis  we,  after  aU,  who  are 
the  honest  folks." 

"  Let  me  have  my  say,"  pursued  Dame 
Cibot ;  "  I'm  not  talking  about  you ; 
Pressingt  persons  are  always  accepted  ! 
as  the  old  actor  says.  I  swear  to  you 
that  these  two  gentlemen  n'are  already 
in  my  debt  to  the  tune  of  about  three 
thousand  francs,  and  that  my  little  sav- 
ings has  all  gone  in  medicine  and  in  their 


COUSIN    PONS. 


121 


concerns,  and  where  should  I  be  n"  if  thej' 
wasn't  to  repay  the  advances  as  I've 
made — I'm  so  stupid,  with  my  honesty, 
as  I  don't  dare  to  say  one  word  to  'em 
about  the  matter.  Now,  you  n'as  are  in 
business,  my  dear  sir,  would  you  advise 
me  to  g:o  to  an  n'advocate  ?  " 

"An  advocate!"  cried  Remonencq, 
"you  know  a  great  deal  more  than  all 
1he  advocasts  j>ut  together!" 

At  this  point,  the  conversation  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  noise  caused  by  the  faU 
of  some  heavy  body  upon  the  dining--i'oom 
floor — a  noise  that  roused  the  echoes  of 
the  spacious  staircase. 

'•  Oh,  m.x  God  I"  exclaimed  Dame  Cibot, 
"  what  can  have  happened  ?  It  seems  to 
me  as  it  must  be  Monsieur  Pons  as  has 
just  taken  a  ticket  for  the  pit !  " 

Thereujion  she  gave  a  shove  to  her  two 
companions,  who  hastily  ran  downstairs, 
while  Dame  Cibot  herself  darted  into  the 
dining--room  and  there  beheld  Pons 
stretched  at  full  leng-th  upon  the  floor, 
with  nothing'  but  his  night-shirt  upon 
him,  and  in  a  swoon  !  Taking  the  old 
bachelor  in  her  arms,  she  raised  him  from 
the  floor  and  carried  him  —  light  as  a 
feather — to  his  bed.  Having  installed 
the  dying  man  therein,  she  proceeded 
to  restore  animation  by  applying  burned 
feathers  to  his  nose  and  bathing  his 
temples  with  eau-de-Cologne.  So  soon 
as  she  saw  that  Pons's  eyes  were  open, 
and  that  consciousness  was  restoi'ed,  she 
placed  her  hands  upon  her  hips,  and  thus 
began  : 

"Without  slippers,  and  without  a  rag 
upon  3'ou,  except  \o\xy  shirt !  Whj-,  it's 
enough  to  give  you  your  death  !  And 
wherefore  do  jom  mistrust  me  ?  If  this 
is  to  be  the  game,  monsieur,  adieu  !  After 
waiting  on  you  for  ten  years,  after  a-spend- 
ing  my  own  money  on  your  private  af- 
fairs, which  all  my  savings  is  gone  that 
way,  just  to  save  poor  Monsieur  Schmucke 
from  being  worried,  which  the  poor  man 
goes  up  and  down  stairs  crying  like  a 
child — this  is  my  reward  !  You  play  the 
spy —  Well !  God  has  punished  you  for 
it ;  and  it  serves  j-ou  right !  And  me 
a-straiuing  of  myself,  to  carry  you  in 
nxy  arms,  and  a-runuing  the  risk  of  being 


n'injured  for  the  rest  o'  my  days.    Oh  ! 
and  didn't  1  leave  the  door  open  ?  " 

"Whom  were  you  talking  to?"  said 
Pons. 

"Xow  there's  a  pretty  notion  for  a 
man  to  take  into  his  head  !  "  cried  Dame 
Citot.  "  What  next,  I  should  like  to 
know  ?  Am  I  your  slave  ?  Am  I  bound 
to  account  to  you  for  n'everything  I  do  ? 
Do  you  know  that  if  you  worry  me  n'in 
this  way,  I'll  leave  you  to  shift  for  your- 
self ;  and  you  can  just  hire  a  nurse  ! " 

Terrified  b^'  this  menace.  Pons,  imwit- 
tingly,  allowed  Madame  Cibot  to  perceive 
to  what  lengths  she  might  go  armed  with 
that  Damoclean  sword. 

"It  is  onl3^  my  disease!"  said  Pons, 
piteously. 

"  Yes,  that's  all  very  fine  !  "  said  Mad- 
ame Cibot  roughlj-,  marching  off  and  leav- 
ing poor  Pons  alone  in  great  perplexity. 
Remorse,  admiration  for  the  clamorous 
self-sacrifice  of  his  nurse,  and  self-accusa- 
tion, combined  to  banish  from  his  mind 
all  consciousness  of  the  terrible  aggrava- 
tion of  his  maladj'  consequent  upon  his 
fall  on  the  dining-room  floor.  Madame 
Cibot  met  Schmucke  coming  upstairs,  and 
thus  accosted  him  : 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I've  got  some  very 
bad  news  to  tell  you,  and  no  mistala.'. 
Monsieur  Pons  is  taking  leave  of  his 
senses!  Only  fancy;  he  got  out  o'  bed, 
and  followed  me,  and  fell  flat  upon  the 
floor  at  full  length,  I  do  assure  you  ;  ask 
hiui  why  he  did  it,  he  knows  nothing 
whatever  n'about  it.  He's  in  a  bad 
way." 

Schmucke  listened  to  Madame  Cibot  as 
if  she  were  talking  Hebrew. 

"'  I  made  an  n'exertion,  which  I  shall 
feel  it  to  the  end  of  my  born  da^-s  ! " 
added  Madame  Cibot,  pretending  to  be 
in  acute  pain  ;  for  it  had  occurred  to  her 
that  she  might  make  a  little  capital  by 
acting  on  an  idea  that  had  fortuitously 
presented  itself  to  her  when  she  felt  that 
her  muscles  were  a  trifle  strained.  "  I 
am  so  stupid,"  she  continued.  "When 
I  saw  him  a-lying  there  upon  the  ground. 
I  takes  him  up  in  my  arms  and  I  carries 
him  to  his  bed,  just  as  if  he'd  been  a  child 
— there  now!     But  now  I  feel  as  I've 


122 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


strained  myself !  Oh  !  I  feel  quite  ill ! 
I'm  gomg  down  to  the  lodge  ;  see  to  our 
patient.  I  shall  send  Cibot  to  fetch  Doc- 
tor Poulain  to  mo !  I'd  rather  die  than 
be  a  cripple." 

And  so  saying,  Madame  Cibot  clutched 
the  balustrade  and  rolled,  rather  than 
walked,  downstairs ;  indulging,  as  she 
went,  in  a  thousand  contortions  and  in 
groans  so  heartrending  that  the  startled 
occupants  of  the  house  quitted  their  re- 
spective habitations  and  thronged  the 
landings  of  the  staircase.  Schmucke — 
his  eyes  streaming  with  tears— supported 
the  sufferer  and  related  to  the  onlookers 
the  story  of  the  portress's  self-sacriflce  : 
nor  was  it  long  ere  the  whole  house,  nay, 
the  whole  neighborhood,  was  ringing  with 
the  sublime  exploit  of  Madame  Cibot,  who 
— so  the  rumor  ran — had  incurred  a  fatal 
strain  by  carrying  one  of  the  Nut-Crackers 
in  her  arms.  On  returning  to  Pons's  bed- 
side, Schmucke  informed  the  invalid  of  the 
desperate  state  of  their  factotum  ;  where- 
upon the  two  friends  looked  at  one  an- 
other, and  said  :  "  What  will  become  of 
us,  without  her?"  Schmucke,  seeing 
how  much  Pons  had  suffered  through  his 
escapade,  did  not  venture  to  scold  him. 

"Dat  file  pric-a-prac  ;  I  would  rader 
purn  de  whole  of  it,  dan  loze  mein  friend," 
exclaimed  he,  on  learning  tlie  cause  of 
Pons's  mishap.  "Diztruzt  Montame  Zi- 
bod,  who  lends  us  her  zavings  !  Dat  is  not 
right ;  put  it  is  de  disease — " 

"Ah!  what  a  disease  it  is !  I  am 
changed;  I  feel  that  I  am,"  said  Pons. 
"  I  should  be  sorry  to  cause  j'ou  any  pain. 
my  good  Schmucke." 

"Grumple  at  me!"  said  Schmucke, 
"and leaf  Montame  Zibod  in  bease." 

Doctor  Poulain  made  short  work  of  the 
infirmity  with  which  Madame  Cibot  was, 
according  to  her  own  account,  threatened- 
and  this  semi-miraculous  cure  added  great 
luster  to  his  reputation  in  the  Marais.  In 
mentioning  the  matter  to  Pons,  the  doc- 
tor attributed  the  cure  to  the  excellent 
constitution  of  the  patient,  who,  to  the 
intense  satisfaction  of  her  two  gentlemen 
resumed  her  duties,  in  their  behalf,  on  the 
seventh  day  after  the  misadventure.  The 
whole  event  increased  the  influence — the 


tyranny — of  the  portress  over  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Pair  of  Nut-Crackers  cent 
per  cent.  During  her  seven  days  absence, 
they  had  run  into  debt.  She  paid  the 
debt,  and  took  advantage  of  the  occasion 
to  obtain  from  Schmucke  (ah,  how  read- 
ily !)  an  acknowledgment  for  the  two 
thousand  francs,  which  she  represented 
herself  to  have  lent  the  two  friends. 

"Ah,  what  a  wonderful  doctor  Mon- 
sieur Poulain  is  !  "  said  Dame  Cibot  to 
Pons.  "Depend  upon  it,  he'll  pull  you 
through,  my  dear  sir ;  for  sure  enough 
he's  dragged  me  out  of  my  cofRn  !  Poor 
Cibot  thought  it  was  all  up  with  me : 
well,  as  Monsieur  Poulain  must  have  told 
you,  when  I  was  a-laying  stretched  upon 
my  bod  I  thought  of  nothing  but  j'ou  : 
'Oh  God,'  sajs  I  to  myself,  'take  me, 
and  let  my  dear  Monsieur    Pons   live.'  " 

"Poor  dear  Madame  Cibot,  you  narrow- 
ly escaped  being  a  criijplo  on  my  account." 

"  Ah  !  yes.  If  it  hadn't  'a'  been  for 
Monsieur  Poulain,  I  should  have  been  in 
the  deal  shift  as  is  a-waiting  for  all  of  us. 
Well,  well !  we  must  put  up  with  the 
consequences  of  our  n'own  folly,  as  the  old 
actor  puts  it !  We  must  take  things  n'as 
they  come,  philosophical.  How  did  you 
get  on  without  me  ?  " 

"Schmucke  nursed  me,"  replied  the 
invalid;  "but  our  poor  nurse,  and  our 
connection,  suffered  in  consequence  —  I 
really  don't  know  how  he  managed." 

"  Keeb  yourself  galm,  Bons  !  "  cried 
Schmucke.  "  Daddy  Zibod  agted  as  our 
banger." 

"Oh!  Don't  mention  t]|iat,  my  dear 
lamb  ;  you  n'are,  both  of  you,  our  chil- 
dren," replied  Dame  Cibot.  "  Our  sav- 
ings are  in  good  keeping  in  your  hands, 
and  no  mistake.  You're  safer  nor  the 
Bank  of  France.  As  long  as  we've  a  bit 
of  bread  to  eat,  half  of  it's  yours — the 
thing  isn't  worth  speaking  about." 

"Boor  Montame  Zibod  !"  said  Schmucke, 
as  he  went  away.  But  Pons  hold  his  peace. 

"Would  you  believe  now,  my  cherub," 
said  Dame  Cibot  to  her  patient,  seeing 
that  he  was  ill  at  ease,  "would  you  be- 
lieve that  when  I  was  a-dying  (for  I  was 
pretty  nigh  face  to  face  with  Madame 
Flatnose  !)  what  tormented  me  most  was 


COUSIN    PONS. 


123 


a-leaving'  of  you  two  alone  to  shift  for 
yourselves,  and  a-leaving  of  my  poor 
Cibot  without  a  farthing  ?  My  savings 
is  such  a  mere  trifle,  that  I  only  mention 
them  with  references  to  my  death  n'and 
to  Cibot,  who's  an  n'angel!  Ay,  that 
poor  creature  nursed  me  like  a  queen,  and 
cried  over  me  like  a  calf.  But  I  trusted 
to  you,  on  the  word  of  an  honest  woman, 
I  did.  Says  I  to  myself:  'AU  right,  Ci- 
bot ;  my  gentlemen'll  never  let  you  want 
for  bread.'  " 

To  this  direct  appeal  ad  testamentum 
Pons  vouchsafed  no  reply ;  and  the  por- 
tress waited  silentl^^  to  hear  what  he 
would  say.     At  length  the  answer  came  : 

"  I  will  recommend  you  to  Schmucke," 
said  the  patient. 

"Ah  !  "  cried  the  portress,  "whatever 
you  do  will  be  sure  to  be  right ;  I  jjuts 
m^'  faith  in  you,  in  your  g-ood  heart. 
Don't  let's  ever  talk  about  the  thing,  for 
you  n'humiliate  me,  my  dear  cherub ; 
think  about  getting  well !  You'll  live 
longer  than  the  rest  of  us." 

Profound  was  the  anxiety  which  now 
took  possession  of  Madame  Cibot ;  and 
she  resolved  to  obtain,  from  her  gentle- 
man, an  explicit  declaration  of  his  inten- 
tions with  regard  to  her  legacy.  Her 
first  stejj  toward  carrying  her  resolution 
into  effect,  was  to  sally  forth  and  call 
upon  Dr.  Poulain  that  very  evening,  after 
Schmucke — who  since  Pons  had  been  taken 
ill  always  had  his  meals  by  his  friend's 
bedside— had  finished  dinner. 


XVII. 


THE   HISTORY   OP   EVERY  DEBUT   AT  PARIS. 

Doctor  Poulain  lived  in  the  Rue 
d'Orleans,  whei-e  he  occupied  a  small 
ground-floor  comprising  an  anteroom,  a 
dimwing-room,  two  bedrooms,  a  pantry, 
a  kitchen,  a  servant's  room,  and  a  little 
cellar.  The  pantry,  which  was  contigu- 
ous to  the  anteroom,  and  communicated 
with  one  of  the  bedrooms — the  doctor's — 
had  been  converted  into  a  study.  This 
suite  of  apartments  formed  part  of  the 


wing  of  a  house — an  enormous  pile,  built 
in  the  days  of  the  Empire,  on  the  site  of 
an  ancient  hotel,  the  garden  of  which  still 
existed  and  was  apportioned  betweea  the 
three  tenements  into  which  the  ground- 
floor  of  the  building  was  divided. 

The  rooms  inhabited  by  the  doctor  had 
undergone  no  alteration  for  forty  j-ears. 
Paint,  paper,  decorations,  all  savored  of 
the  imperial  epoch.  The  glasses  and  their 
frames,  the  patterns  of  the  paper,  the 
ceilings  and  the  paint  were  dim  with 
smoke  and  daubed  with  the  accumulated 
dirt  of  forty  years.  Yet  this  little  habi- 
tation in  the  depths  of  the  Marais  cost  its 
occupier  forty  pounds  a  year. 

lu  the  second  of  the  two  bedrooms, 
Madame  Poulain,  the  doctor's  mother, 
aged  sixty-seven,  was  spending  the  years 
that  yet  remained  to  her.  She  worked 
for  the  breeches-makers.  She  stitched 
gaiters,  leather  breeches,  braces  and 
belts,  in  short,  all  the  appurtenances  of 
and  belonging  to  those  now  unfashionable 
garments.  Occupied  as  she  was  with 
household  duties  and  the  superintendence 
of  the  only  servant  that  her  son  emploj-ed, 
she  never  left  the  precincts  of  her  dwell- 
ing, but  took  an  occasional  airing  in  the 
little  garden  to  which  a  glass  door  in  the 
drawing-room  gave  access.  She  had  now 
been  a  widow  for  twenty  j'ears. 

On  the  death  of  her  husband  she  sold 
the  good-wDl  and  stock  in  trade  of  her 
breeches-manufactory  to  her  foreman, 
who  reserved  for  lier  work  enough  to 
enable  her  to  earn  about  fifteenpence  a 
day.  Urged  hy  a  desire  to  place  her  only 
son — no  matter  at  what  cost — in  a  position 
superior  to  that  which  his  father  had 
occupied,  the  Widow  Poulain  had  shrunk 
from  no  sacrifice  which  might  further  the 
education  of  her  hoy.  Proud  of  her  JE&- 
culapius,  and  believing  in  his  future  suc- 
cess, she«steadily  pursued  tlie  path  of  total 
self-denial,  and  found  her  happiness  in 
ministering  to  her  son  and  hiving  by 
money  for  him.  Her  one  day-dream  ^as 
his  welfare,  and,  moreover,  she  loved  him 
with  an  intelligent  love  that  is  beyond 
the  reach  of  many  mothers.  Madame 
Poulain  never  forgot  that  she  had  been  a 
common  workwoman ,  and  since  the  good 


124 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


,  lady  spoke  in  S,  Just  as  Madame  Cibot 
spoke  in  N,  and  was  loath  tliat  her  son 
should  be  injured  through  an3'  ridicule  or 
contempt  that  she  might  excite,  she 
would,  of  her  own  accord,  take  refuge 
in  her  own  room  when  it  so  happened 
that  any  distinguished  patient  came  to 
consult  her  son;  or  when  any  of  his  school- 
fellows or  hospital  companions  presented 
themselves;  so  that  the  defective  educa- 
tion of  the  mother — a  defect  that  was 
amply  redeemed  hy  her  dublime  affection 
for  her  offspi-ing — never  raised  a  blush 
upon  the  doctor's  cheek.  The  sale  of 
the  good-will  and  stock  in  trade  of  the 
breeches-manufactory  had  produced  some 
twenty  thousand  francs,  which  the  widow 
invested  in  the  public  funds  in  the  year 
1820 ;  and  the  dividends,  amounting  to 
eleven  hundred  francs,  constituted  her 
only  independent  means.  Under  these 
circumstances,  no  one  will  be  surprised  to 
learn  that  during  many  j'ears  the  widow's 
neighbors  in  the  Rue  d'Orleans  were,  at 
certain  times  and  seasons,  edified  by  the 
spectacle  of  the  family  linen  hanging  on 
the  clothes-lines  in  the  little  garden.  The 
servant  and  Madame  Poulain,  between 
them,  did  the  washing  at  home,  at  a 
trifling  cost.  But  this  detail  of  domestic 
economy  did  the  doctor  a  great  deal  of 
harm.  How  could  so  poor  a  man  be  a 
man  of  talent  ? 

The  eleven  hundred  francs  were  ab- 
sorbed by  house  rent ;  so  that,  at  start- 
ing, Madame  Poulain— a  stout  little  old 
woman,  with  a  kintl  heart — had  to  meet, 
out  of  the  proceeds  of  her  own  unaided 
industiy,  all  the  expenses  of  the  humble 
home.  At  length,  after  twelve  years' 
perseverance  in  his  stony  path.  Dr.  Pou- 
lain managed  to  scrape  together  about 
three  thousand  francs  a  year ;  so  that  his 
mother  had  an  income  of  about  five  thou- 
sand francs  with  which  to  make  both  ends 
meet.  Those  who  know  what  Paris  is, 
are  well  aware  that  such  an  income  is 
just  sufficient  to  procure  the  necessaries 
of  life. 

The  drawing-room  (which  served  as  a 
patient's  waiting-room)  was  meanly  fur- 
nished. It  contained  the  inevitable  ma- 
hogany sofa  covered  with  yellow  Utrecht 


velvet,  flowered.  Add  to  this  four  arm- 
chairs, six  ordinary  chairs,  a  console  and 
a  tea-table,  and  the  inventory  is  com- 
plete. All  these  valuables  had  been  se- 
lected by  the  deceased  breeches-maker, 
and  formed  part  of  his  estate  at  his  de- 
cease. The  time-piece,  which  was  never 
I'eleased  from  its  dome  of  glass,  was  in 
the  form  of  a  lyre,  and  was  flanked  by  a 
pair  of  Egyptian  candelabra.  To  what 
process  of  preservation  the  window-cui-- 
tains  of  this  apartment  had  been  sub- 
jected, was  a  question  which  forced  itself 
upon  the  observer ;  but  that  they  had 
contrived  to  hang  together  for  a  period 
of  abnormal  length  was  obvious  from 
their  texture  and  their  pattern  :  they 
were  of  yellow  calico  stamped  with  red 
roses,  and  came  from  the  manufactory  at 
Jouj'.  Nov,'  it  was  in  the  year  1809  that 
Obercamjif  received  the  compliments  of 
the  emperor  on  account  of  these  atrocious 
products  of  the  cotton  trade  !  The  doc- 
tor's study  was  furnished  in  the  same 
style,  with  furniture  that  had  already 
seen  service  in  the  paternal  chamber,  and 
gave  the  room  a  meager,  chilly,  poverty- 
stricken  aspect.  Now  in  this  age,  when 
the  advertisement  is  all-powerful,  when 
we  gild  the  lamp-posts  in  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  in  order  that  the  pauper  may 
fancy  himself  a  wealtlw  citizen,  and  find 
comfort  in  the  illusion,  what  patient  will 
believe  in  the  skill  of  a  lAysician  who  has 
neither  fame  nor — furniture  ? 

The  antechamber  was  used  as  a  dining- 
room  ;  and  the  servant  worked  in  it,  when 
not  engaged  in  the  discharge  of  her  culi- 
nary functions,  or  in  relieving  the  solitude 
of  the  doctor's  mother.  Enter  this  room, 
and  a  glance  at  the  scanty  sand-colored 
muslin  curtains  of  the  window,  which 
looks  on  the  court,  revealed  to  you  the 
decent  penury  that  reigned  in  this  drear 
abode,  which  was  a  desert  during  half  the 
day.  Those  cupboards  must  conceal  the 
mouldy  pate,  the  chipped  plate,  the  imme- 
morial cork,  the  napkin  that  has  done  duty 
for  a  week  ;  in  short  all  those  venial  igno- 
minies that  are  to  be  found  in  small 
Parisians  households,  and  thence  find 
their  way,  directly,  to  the  ragman's  creel. 
Under  these  circumstances,  and  in  these 


COUSIN    PONS. 


125 


days  when  the  crown-piece  nestles  at  the 
bottom  of  eveiy  heart,  and  rings  in  ever\' 
phrase  that  is  uttered,  the  doctor,  who 
was  now  thirty-,  and  had  a  mother  with- 
out connections  of  any  Ivind,  very  natur- 
ally remained  unmarried.  In  his  inter- 
course with  the  various  families  to  which 
his  professional  duties  inti^oduced  him,  he 
had  never — throughout  ten  long  years — 
encountered  even  the  slightest  foundation 
for  a  castle  in  the  air ;  for  the  people 
whom  Dr.  Poulain  attended  occupied  a 
sphere  in  which  the  dailj^  routine  of  exist- 
ence was  similar  to  that  to  which  he  him- 
self was  accustomed.  The  only  establish- 
ments he  saw — those  of  minor  clerks  and 
petty  manufacturers — resembled  his  own 
establishment.  His  richest  patients  were 
the  butchers,  the  bakers,  the  large  retail 
dealers  of  the  district ;  and  these  good 
people  genei'allj'  imputed  their  recovery 
to  the  operations  of  Dame  Nature,  in 
order  to  reduce  to  a  couple  of  shillings 
the  fee  of  the  doctor  who  came  to  visit 
them  on  foot.  In  the  medical  profession 
the  carriage  is  more  important  than  the 
cure. 

A  commonplace  and  uneventful  life  tells, 
in  the  long-  run,  upon  the  most  adven- 
turous spirit.  A  man  molds  himself  to 
the  shape  required  by  his  lot,  and  accepts 
the  yoke  of  a  humdrum  existence.  Thus, 
after  a  ten  years'  practice  of  his  profes- 
sion. Dr.  Poulain  pursued  his  Sisyphean 
calling  without  feeling  the  extreme  de- 
jection that,  in  the  earlier  portion  of  his 
career,  had  filled  his  cup  with  bitterness. 
Yet  he  too  had  his  day-dream.  At  Paris 
every  person  has  a  day-dream.  Remo- 
nencq  had  his  day-dream ;  Madame  Cibot 
hers.  Dr.  Poulain's  day-dream  took  the 
form  of  a  hope  that  he  might  be  sum- 
moned to  the  sick-bed  of  some  wealthy 
and  powerful  patient,  and  obtain  through 
the  influence  of  this  patron-patient — whom 
he  would  of  course  succeed  in  curing — the 
post  of  chief  physician  to  a  hospital,  or  of 
physician  in  ordinary  to  a  prison,  or  a 
boulevard  theater,  or  a  government  oflBce. 
It  was  in  this  way,  indeed,  that  he  had 
procured  his  appointment  as  a  physician 
to  the  mairie.  Introduced  by  Madame 
Cibot,  he  had  attended  and  cured  M.  Pil- 


lerault,  the  owner  of  the  house  to  which 
the  Cibots  were  attached  as  porters.  M. 
Pillerault,  who  was  grandunclc,  on  the 
mother's  side,  to  the  Countess  Popinot, 
the  wife  of  the  Minister,  became  interested 
in  the  fortunes  of  the  young  doctor,  whose 
hidden  penury  the  old  man  had  fathomed 
when  he  went  to  thank  the  physician  for 
his  attentions. 

Actuated  by  this  feeling,  M.  Pillerault 
induced  his  grandnephew  the  Minister — 
who  adored  his  old  uncle — to  give  Dr.  Pou- 
lain the  berth  which  he  had  now  occupied 
for  five  years.  The  slender  emoluments 
of  this  office  came  just  in  the  very  nick  of 
time  to  prevent  the  doctor  from  resort- 
ing to  that  desperate  measure — emigra- 
tion ;  which,  to  a  Frenchman,  is  almost 
as  bad  as  death.  Dr.  Poulain  took  good 
care  to  pay  Count  Popinot  a  visit  of  ac- 
knowledgment, but  finding  that  that 
statesman's  medical  attendant  was  the 
illustrious  Bianchon,*  the  poor  doctor 
fully  understood  that  to  solicit  employ- 
ment in  that  quarter  would  be  a  veiy 
hopeless  enterprise.  After  having  nursed 
the  flattering  hope  of  securing  the  patron- 
age of  an  influential  Minister — one  of  those 
twelve  or  fifteen  great  cards  that,  during 
the  last  sixteen  years,  a  powerful  hand 
has  been  shuffling  on  the  green  cloth  of 
the  council-table — Dr.  Poulain  found  him- 
self once  more  immersed  in  the  Marais, 
and  doomed  to  potter  about  among  the 
small  tradesmen  and  the  poor  of  the  dis- 
trict, and  to  act  as  registrar  of  deaths  at 
a  salary'  of  twelve  hundred  francs  per 
annum. 

Dr.  Poulain,  who  had  distinguished 
himself  as  a  resident  medical  student, 
and  had  developed  into  a  careful  practi- 
tioner, \>y  no  means  lacked  experience. 
Moreover,  if  his  patients  died,  their  death 
gave  rise  to  no  scandal ;  and  he  had  an 
opportunity  of  studying  every  species  of 
disease  in  animd  vili.  You  may  readUy 
imagine  on  what  a  regimen  of  gall  he 
lived  !  And  accordingh'  the  expression 
of  his  face — a  face  which  was  naturally 
long  and  melancholy  —  was,  sometimes, 
positively    fearful.      Picture  to  yourself 

*  See  "  Why  the  Atheist  Prayed." 


126 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  eyes  of  Tartuffe  glittering  thi-ough 
a  mask  of  yellow  parchment,  stamped 
with  all  the  bitterness  of  Alceste  ;  picture 
to  yourself  the  bearing,  the  attitude,  and 
the  glance  of  this  man,  who,  knowing 
that  he  was  quite  as  good  a  doctor  as 
the  illustrious  Bianchon,  found  himself 
fixed  in  an  obscure  position  by  a  hand  of 
iron.  Dr.  Poulain  could  not  help  compar- 
ing his  gains — which  even  on  luckj'  days 
did  not  exceed  ten  francs — with  those  of 
Bianchon  who  made  his  five  or  six  hun- 
dred francs  per  diem !  That  reflection 
will  explain  all  that  envious  hate  that 
seethes  in  the  bosom  of  the  democrat. 
Nor  could  this  victim  of  repressed  am- 
bition charge  himself  with  any  remiss- 
ness. He  had  already  tried  to  make  a 
fortune  \>y  the  invention  of  purgative 
pilules  resembling  those  of  Morison.  He 
had  intrusted  the  working  of  this  specula- 
tion to  one  of  his  fellow-students,  a  resi- 
dent student  who  had  turned  druggist. 
But  this  druggist  fell  in  love  Avith  a  bal- 
let-girl at  the  opera,  and  became  a  bank- 
rupt, and  the  patent  of  invention  for  the 
purgative  pilules,  having  been  taken  out 
in  his  name,  the  magnificent  discovery 
went  to  enrich  his  successor.  The  former 
resident  student  scampered  off  to  Mexico 
— the  land  of  gold — taking  with  him  a 
thousand  francs  of  poor  Poulain's  sav- 
ings ;  and  when  the  poor  fellow  went  to 
the  figurante  to  ask  for  his  monej',  she 
treated  him — by  way  of  consolation  stakes 
— as  if  he  had  been  a  money-lender.  Since 
Poulaui  had  had  the  good  fortune  to  cure 
old  Pillerault,  his  services  had  not  been 
sought  by  any  wealthy  patient.  So  he 
had  to  run  about  the  Marais  on  foot,  like 
a  hungry  cat,  and,  in  a  round  of  twenty 
visits,  would  find  only  two  that  jdelded 
him  a  fee  of  fortj'  sous  apiece.  To  him 
the  liberal  patient  was  that  fairy  bird 
which,  in  every  region  under  the  sun, 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  white  black- 
bird. 

The  young  briefless  barrister,  the  young 
doctor  without  connection  are  the  two 
most  striking  personifications  of  that 
genteel  Despair  which  is  peculiar  to  Paris 
— that  chilly  dumb  Despair  that  walks 
about  clad  in  black  coat  and  trousers, 


whose  shiny  seams  recall  tlie  zinc  that 
roofs  the  attic  in  which  it  hides.  The 
well-worn  satin  waistcoat,  the  well-saved 
hat,  old  gloves  and  calico  shirt,  complete 
the  livery.  'Tis  a  perfect  poem  of  misery, 
as  somber  as  the  secret  cells  of  the  Con- 
ciergerie.  The  penurj'  of  others — of  the 
poet,  the  artist,  the  actor,  the  musician 
— is  relieved  by.  the  gayety  that  Art 
brings  in  her  train,  and  by  the  light- 
heartedness  which  prevails  thi'oughout 
Bohemia — that  avenue  to  the  Thebaides 
of  genius  :  but  the  features  of  these  two 
black-coated  figures,  that  steal  about  on 
foot,  and  belong  to  two  professions  whose 
members  live  by  the  sufferings  of  hu- 
manity and  see  only  its  weaker  and  its 
baser  sides — the  features  of  the  strug- 
gling barrister  and  struggling  doctor — 
are  frequently  marked  by  a  defiant  and 
sinister  expression,  and  reveal  their  min- 
gled hatred  of  the  wealthy  and  eagerness 
for  wealth  in  glances  that  dart  from  their 
ej'es  like  the  first  tongues  of  flame  emitted 
by  a  smoldering  conflagration.  When 
two  men,  who  were  friends  at  school,  en- 
counter one  another  after  an  interval  of 
twenty  years,  the  rich  one  shuns  the 
pauper  who  was  once  his  comrade,  does 
not  recognize  him,  shudders  at  the 
thought  of  the  abyss  that  destiny  has 
placed  between  them.  The  one  has  trav- 
eled through  life,  borne  along  by  Fort- 
une's prancing  steeds  or  throned  on 
the  golden  clouds  of  triumph  ;  the  other 
has  plodded  his  weary  waj'  through  sub- 
terraneous paths,  "  the  common  shores  " 
of  Paris,  and  is  stained  with  all  their 
"sable  tokens."  Ah  !  how  many  of  Dr. 
Poulain's  former  friends  avoided  him  at 
the  sight  of  that  waistcoat  and  that  coat. 

The  reader  will  now  find  no  difficulty 
in  understanding  whj'  Dr.  Poulain  plaj'ed 
his  part  so  perfectly  in  the  little  comedy 
which  might  be  entitled  :  "Dame  Cibot's 
peril." 

All  greeds  and  ail  ambitions  have  a 
freemasonry  of  their  own.  When  the 
doctor  not  only  failed  to  discover  any 
organic  lesion  of  any  kind  in  Madame 
Cibot,  but  found  that  her  pulse  was  ad- 
mirably regular,  and  that  her  movements 
were  entirely  free  from  constraint,  and 


COUSIN    PONS. 


127 


yet  heard  her  screaming  as  if  in  pain,  he 
saw  at  once  that  she  had  a  motive  for 
pretending  to  be  at  the  point  of  death. 
Knowing  that  the  speedy  cure  of  a  serious 
(imaginar^^)  illness  would  cause  his  name 
to  he  talked  about  in  the  arroudissement, 
he  exaggerated  Madame  Cibot's  vision- 
ary rupture  and  talked  about  reducing  it 
by  taking  it  in  time.  In  short,  he  admin- 
istered fictitious  remedies,  and  performed 
a  fantastic  operation,  which  were  crowned 
with  complete  success.  Having  ransacked 
the  arsenal  of  Desplein's  extraordinaiy 
cures,  and  hit  upon  an  out-of-the-way 
case,  he  proceeded  to  treat  Madame  Ci- 
bot  by  the  same  method,  modestly  gave 
the  credit  of  its  successful  issue  to  the 
eminent  surgeon,  and  represented  himself 
as  his  imitator. 

Such  is  the  audacity  of  the  Parisian 
debutant !  He  turns  everything  into  a 
ladder,  -wherewith  to  reach  his  theater 
of  action.  But  since  all  things — even  the 
rungs  of  a  ladder — wear  out  in  time,  the 
aspirants  of  every  profession  are  at  their 
wit's  end  for  wood  to  make  steps  with. 

At  certain  times  the  Parisian  mutinies 
against  success.  Tired  of  erecting  ped- 
estals, he  sulks  like  a  spoiled  child,  and 
resolves  to  have  no  more  idols ;  or,  to  be 
strictly  accurate,  men  of  talent  are  not 
alwaj"S  forthcoming  to  feed  his  infatua- 
tion. There  are  faults  in  the  veins  that 
supplies  us  with  men  of  genius.  When 
such  a  fault  occurs  the  Parisian  begins 
to  kick ;  he  is  not  content  to  be  always 
adorning  or  adoring  mediocrity. 

When  Madame  Cibot,  with  her  habit- 
ual bruskness,  bounced  into  the  doctor's 
dining-room,  she  surprised  him  and  his 
aged  mother  at  the  dinner-table  discuss- 
ing a  corn-salad — the  cheapest  of  all 
salads — while  their  dessert  was  limited  to 
an  acuteangled  triangle  of  Brie  cheese 
which  was  flanked  on  one  side  by  a  dish 
containing  a  meager  supply  of  figs,  fil- 
berts, almonds,  and  raisins  (commonly 
called  les  q^iatre-mendiants)  and  a  plen- 
tiful supply  of  raisin-stalks,  and  on  the 
other  side  by  a  dish  of  common  apples. 

"  You  need  not  go  away,  mother,"  said 
the  doctor,  detaining  Madame  Poulain  by 
placing  his  hand  upon  her  arm ;  "  this  is 


Madame  Cibot,  of  whom  you  have  heard 

me  speak." 

••  My  respects  to  you,  madame ;  my 
duty  to  you,  monsieur,"  said  Dame  Cibot, 
as  she  seated  herself  in  the  chair  which 
the  doctor  offered  her.  "Ah  !  this  good 
lady  is  your  mother ;  she's  most  fortunate 
in  having  such  a  clever  son  ;  for  he's  my 
savior,  madame ;  he  pulled  me  n'out  of 
the  pit  of—" 

When  the  widow  heard  this  eulogy  upon 
her  son  from  the  lips  of  the  portress,  she 
thought  Madame  Cibot  a  charming  per- 
son. 

"Well,  it's  to  tell  you,  dear  Doctor 
Poulain,  between  ourselves,  as  poor  Mon- 
sieur Pons  is  a-going  on  very  badh'  in- 
deed, and  I  want  to  have  a  word  with 
3'ou  in  relation  to  him—" 

"Let  us  go  into  the  drawing-room," 
said  Dr.  Poulain,  intimating  to  Madame 
Cibot,  by  a  significant  gesture,  that  the 
sei-vant  was  present. 

So  soon  as  Madame  Cibot  was  in  the 
drawing-room  she  entered  into  a  lengthy 
exposition  of  her  relations  with  the  Pair 
of  Nut-Crackers ;  she  repeated,  with 
divers  embellishments,  the  story  of  her 
loan  to  them,  and  recounted  the  immense 
services  which  she  had  rendered  to 
Messrs.  Pons  and  Schmucke  during  the 
last  ten  years.  According  to  her  show- 
ing, those  two  old  men  would  not  have 
been  alive  but  for  her  maternal  care. 
She  posed  as  an  angel  and  told  so  manj- 
tear-besprinkled  falsehooas  that  at  length 
old  Madame  Poulain  became  deeply  af- 
fected. 

'•'  You  understand,  my  dear  sir,"  said 
Madame  Cibot  in  conclusion,  "as  it's 
highly  n'important  I  should  know  n'ej?- 
actly  what  Monsieur  Puns  intends  to  do 
for  me  in  case  he  should  happen  to  die  ; 
which  of  course  I  don't  want  him  so  to  do 
scarcely;  for  j-ou  see,  madame,  looking 
after  these  two  innocents  is  my  very  life  ; 
but  if  one  of  them  goes  I'll  look  after  the 
other.  Nature  built  me  for  the  rival  of 
maternittj.  If  I  hadn't  some  one  to  take 
an  n 'interest  in  and  to  make  a  child  of  I 
don't  know  whatever  would  become  o' 
me.  Well  then,  if  Monsieur  Poulain  was 
willing  he  might  do  me  a  service,  as  I 


128 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


should  be  very  grateful  for,  bj'^  putting-  in 
a  word  for  nie  with  Monsieur  Pons.  Mj' 
God  !  a  thousand  francs  a  year  for  life,  is 
that  too  much,  I  should  liUo  to  know  ?  It 
'ud  be  just  so  much  in  Monsieur  Sclimucke's 
pocket.  Well,  now,  our  dear  invalid  told 
nie  as  he'd  recommend  me  to  this  poor 
German,  who,  therefore,  n'according  to 
his  idea,  would  be  his  heir.  But  what 
can  one  do  with  a  man  as  can't  tack  two 
ideas  together  in  French,  and  who,  be- 
sides, may  take  it  into  his  head  to  run  olT 
to  Germany;  he'll  be  so  cut  up  by  the 
death  of  his  friend?" 

"My  dear  Madame  Cibot,"  replied  the 
doctor,  whose  face  now  wore  a  very 
solemn  aspect,  "  doctors  have  nothing- 
whatever  to  do  with  such  matters  as  you 
have  mentioned,  and  I  should  be  sus- 
pended from  the  practice  of  my  profes- 
sion if  it  were  known  that  I  had  meddled 
with  the  testamentary  arrangements  of 
one  of  my  patients.  The  law  forbids  a 
doctor  to  accept  a  legacy  from  his  pa- 
tient—" 

"What  a  fool  of  a  law  !  for  what  is 
there  to  hinder  me  from  sharing  my 
legacy  with  you?"  replied  Dame  Cibot, 
without  a  moment's  hesitation. 

•■  I  will  go  yet  further,"  said  the  doc- 
tor; "my  conscience  as  a  medical  man 
forbids  mo  to  talk  to  Monsieur  Pons  about 
his  death.  In  the  first  place,  his  position 
is  not  sufficiently  critical  for  that;  and,  in 
the  second,  such  language  coming  from 
me  would  cause  him  a  shock  that  might 
do  him  substantial  injury,  and  so  render 
his  case  desperate." 

"But  I  make  no  bones  about  telling 
him  to  set  his  affairs  in  order — and  n'it 
makes  him  not  a  penny  the  worse. 
He's  accustomed  to  it !  You  needn't  be 
afraid,"  said  Madame  Cibot. 

"Don't  say  another  word  to  me  upon 
the  subject,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot ! 
Matters  of  this  kind  are  not  within  the 
province  of  the  physician ;  they  are  for 
the  notary — " 

'•  But,  mj'  dear  Monsieur  Poulain,  sup- 
pose as  Monsieur  Pons  was  to  ask  you 
how  he  is  of  his  own  n'accord.  and  whether 
he  would  do  well  to  take  his  precautions. 
That  being-  so,  would  you  refuse  to  tell 


him  as  it's  a  n'excellent  way  to  get  well 
ag-ain  to  n'have  all  .your  affairs  ship-shape? 
Then  3'ou  might  just  slip  in  one  little  word 
about  me — " 

"  Oh  !  if  he  begins  talking  to  me  about 
making-  his  will,  I  shall  not  dissuade  him 
from  doing  so,"  said  Dr.  Poulain. 

"Well,  then,  that  matter's  settled!" 
cried  Madame  Cibot.  "  I  came  to  thank 
you  for  the  trouble  3'ou  took  in  ray  case," 
she  added,  slipping  into  the  doctor's  hand 
a  curl-paper  containing-  three  pieces  of 
gold.  "  That's  all  as  I'm  able  to  do 
just  now.  Ah  !  if  I  was  only  rich  j'ou 
should  be  rich  too,  dear  Doctor  Poulain ; 
you  u'as  is  the  image  of  the  good  God  on 
earth — Ah  !  madame,  j^ou've  g-ot  an  n'an- 
g-el  for  a  son." 

So  saying-.  Dame  Cibot  rose  ;  Madame 
Poulain  bowed  to  her  in  high  g-ood-humor, 
and  the  doctor  escorted  her  as  far  as  the 
landing.  There  this  fearful  Lady  Mac- 
beth of  the  street  was  enlightened  by  a 
ray  of  intellig-ence  that  came  direct  from 
hell.  She  perceived  that  the  doctor  must 
be  her  accomplice  since  he  accepted  an 
honorarium  for  the  cure  of  a  simulated 
malady. 

"Why,  my  dear  Monsieur  Poulain," 
she  said  to  him ;  "  after  having-  pulled 
me  round  after  my  accident,  would  j'ou 
decline  to  save  me  from  want  by  saying 
of  a  few  words  ?  " 

The  doctor  felt  that  he  had  allowed 
the  devil  to  get  hold  of  one  of  his  hairs, 
and  that  that  hair  was  being  twisted 
round  the  ruthless  horn  of  the  red  claw. 
Startled  by  the  notion  of  losing  his  integ- 
rit3'  for  so  mere  a  trifle,  he  responded 
to  Dame  Cibot's  diabolical  suggestion  bj' 
another  equally  diabolical. 

"Listen  to  me,  my  dear  Madame  Ci- 
bot," said  he,  taking  the  good  lady  back 
into  his  apartments  and  conducting  her 
to  his  study.  "  I  am  about  to  pay  the 
debt  of  gratitude  I  owe  you  for  having 
got  me  my  post  at  the  mairie — " 

"We  will  go  shares,"  said  Madame 
Cibot,  emphatically. 

"  In  what  ?  "  asked  the  doctor. 

"In  the  old  man's  fortune,"  replied  the 
portress. 

"You   evidently  don't  know  me,"  re- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


139 


plied  the  doctor,  posing  as  Valerius  Pub- 
licola.  "Don't  mention  that  subject  to 
me  again.  I  have  an  old  school-fellow, 
a  very  clever  young  man  who  is  all  the 
more  friendly  toward  me  because  our  lot 
in  life  has  been  the  same.  While  I  was 
studying  medicine  he  was  learning  law ; 
while  I  was  a  resident  student  at  the  hos- 
pital, he  was  engrossing  deeds  in  the  office 
of  a  solicitor,  Maitre  Couture.  His  father 
was  a  shoe-maker,  just  as  mine  was  a 
manufacturer  of  breeches  ;  so,  you  may 
be  sure,  ho  did  not  meet  with  much  sj'm- 
pathy  from  those  about  him ;  and,  what 
is  more,  he  found  no  capital ;  for  after  all 
it  is  only  through  exciting  sympathy  that 
one  gets  capital.  The  best  he  could  do 
was  to  treat  for  a  provincial  practice  at 
Mantes.  Now  so  little  do  provincial  folks 
understand  a  Parisian  Intellect  that  my 
friend  was  constantly  in  hot  water  among 
them—" 

"  The  scoundrels  !  "  exclaimed  Madame 
Cibot. 

"  Yes, "  pursued  the  doctor;  "for  the 
good  people  of  Mantes  combined  against 
him  with  such  effect  that  he  was  forced  to 
sell  his  practice  on  account  of  some  mat- 
ters that  were  misrepresented  so  as  to 
make  him  appear  to  be  in  the  wrong  ;  the 
king's  attornej^  interfered ;  he  belonged 
to  the  neighborhood,  and  made  common 
cause  with  the  natives  of  the  place.  This 
poor  young  man,  whose  name  is  Fraisier, 
who  is  even  more  lean  and  more  thread- 
bare than  I  am,  and  has  no  better  house 
over  his  head,  has  taken  refuge  in  our 
arrondissement.  He  is  obliged  to  plead 
— for  he  is  an  advocate — before  the  Juge 
de  paix,  and  in  the  ordinary  police-courts. 
He  lives  close  by — in  the  Rue  de  la  Perle. 
If  you  go  to  number  nine  and  mount  to  the 
third  storj%  you  will  see,  when  you  reach 
the  landing,  the  words  :  CABINET  DE 
MONSIEUR  FRAISIER,  in  gilt  letters 
on  a  little  square  of  red  morocco.  Frai- 
sier's  business  is  almost  exclusively  con- 
fined to  the  litigation  of  the  porters,  the 
artisans,  and  the  poor  inhabitants  of  our 
arrondissement.  His  charges  are  very 
moderate.  He  is  a  man  of  honor ;  for  I 
need  hardly  tell  you  that,  with  his  abili- 
ties, he  would  now  be  driving  his  carriage 

Balzac — E 


if  he  were  a  rogue.  I  shall  see  my  friend 
Fraisier  this  evening ;  go  to  him  early 
to-morrow  morning.  He  knows  Monsieur 
Louchard  the  bailiff.  Monsieur  Tabareau 
the  bailiff  of  tlio  Justice  depaix,  Monsieur 
Vitel  the  Juge  de  paix,  and  Monsieur 
Trognon  the  notary.  He  has  already 
won  a  position  among  the  most  reputable 
professional  men  of  the  district.  If  he 
undertakes  your  business  and  you  can  get 
him  to  act  as  Monsieur  Pons's  legal  ad- 
viser, you  will  find  in  him,  I  can  assure 
you,  a  second  self.  Only,  let  me  warn 
3'ou,  not  to  propose  to  him,  as  j'ou  did 
to  me,  a  mutual  agreement  of  a  dishonor- 
able character  ;  at  the  same  time,  I  may 
tell  you  that  he  is  an  intelligent  man,  and 
that  you  and  he  will  be  able  to  cohie  to 
some  understanding.  Then,  as  regards 
the  remuneration  of  his  services,  I  will 
act  as  your  intermediary' — " 

Madame  Cibot  looked  at  the  doctor 
with  a  knowing  look,  and  inquired  : 

"  Isn't  he  the  legal  gentleman  as  pulled 
Madame  Florimond  what  keeps  the  haber- 
dasher's shop  in  the  Rue  Vieille  du  Temple 
out  of  the  mess  as  she  got  into  over  the 
estate  of  the  gentleman  what — " 

"  That's  the  ver^'  man,"  said  the  doctor. 

"N'isn't  it  a  shame,"  cried  Madame 
Cibot,  "that  after  he'd  been  and  gone 
and  got  her  a  n'income  of  two  thousand 
francs  she  should  have  gone  and  jilted 
him  when  he  n'asked  her  to  marry  him, 
and  should  have  thought  as  she  was  quits 
with  him  (as  they  saj-  she  did)  by  giving 
him  a  dozen  hoUand  shirts,  two  dozen 
handkerchiefs,  and — in  short,  a  n'outfit !" 

"My  dear  Madame  Cibot,"  replied  the 
doctor,  "the  outfit  you  speak  of  cost  a 
thousand  francs ;  and  Fraisier,  wlio  was 
at  that  time  just  commencing  business  in 
this  district,  was  sadly  in  want  of  an  out- 
fit. Besides,  Madame  Florimond  paid  liis 
bill  of  costs  without  caviling  at  a  single 
item  ;  and  that  piece  of  business  was  the 
means  of  bringing  Fraisier  a  good  many 
other  clients;  so  that  he  has  his  hands 
quite  full  of  business  now  ;  though.  I  must 
admit,  it  is  of  much  the  same  description 
as  my  own — there  isn't  much  to  choose 
between  his  connection  and  mine — " 

"  It  is  only  tlie  just  as  sullers  here  be- 


130 


THia    HUM  Ay    COMEDY. 


low  !  "  replied  the  portress.  "  Well,  g-ood- 
by  and  thank  j'ou,  my  dear  Monsieur 
Poulain." 

And  now  begins  the  drama — or  (if  you 
will)  the  tragi-comedy — of  the  death  of 
an  old  bachelor  who,  by  the  irresistible 
force  of  circumstances,  has  become  the 
helpless  prey  of  the  avaricious  being's 
now  g-rouj)ed  around  his  dj'ing-  bed. 

Leag'ued  and  allied  with  them  are  the 
keenest  of  all  passions — the  passion  of  the 
picture-maniac,  the  g-reed  of  Fraisier  (the 
portrait  of  whom,  as  he  appeared  in  his 
den,  will  make  you  shudder),  and  the 
thirst  for  gold  of  an  Auvergnat,  who,  to 
become  a  capitalist,  was  prepared  for 
anything,  even  crime.  This,  the  earlier 
portion  of  my  narrative  serves,  in  some 
sort,  as  an  introduction  to  this  tragi- 
comedy, while  the  dr^amatis  personce  in- 
clude all  the  characters  who  have  hitherto 
occupied  the  stage. 


XVIII. 


A   MAN    OF   LAW. 

Among  odd  freaks  of  custom,  the  de- 
basement of  words  is  one  that  would 
require  volumes  for  its  explanation. 
Write  to  a  solicitor,  styhng  him  a 
homme  de  lot,  and  you  will  offend  him 
as  gravely  as  you  would  a  colonial  mer- 
chant were  you  to  send  him  a  letter 
addressed  :  Monsieur  So-and-so,  Grocer. 
There  are  a  great  many  men  of  the 
world  —  and  they  surelj'  ought  to  be 
perfectly  familiar  with  these  subtle  tech- 
nicalities of  the  art  of  living ;  since,  if 
they  are  ignorant  of  these,  thej^  are 
ignorant  of  all  things — who  are  entirely 
unaware  that  to  call  an  author  a  homme 
de  leitres  is  the  most  galling  insult  that 
you  can  offer  him.  The  word  monsieur  is 
the  most  striking  example  of  the  life  and 
death  of  words.  Monsieur  means  mon- 
seigneur.  This  title,  monsieur,  which  was 
formerly  so  important  (and  is  still,  when 
transformed  from  sieur  into  sire,  reserved 
exclusively  for  monarclis),  is  now  applied 
to  everybody ;  although,  strange  to  say, 


mcssire  (which  is  nothing  more  than  the 
word  monsieur  doubled,  and  is  its  equiv- 
alent) provokes  indignant  articles  in  the 
Republican  journals  when  it  occurs  in  an 
invitation  to  a  funeral.  Magistrats,  con- 
seillers,  jurisconsultes,  juges,  avocats, 
officiers  ministeriels,  avoues,  huissiera, 
conseils,  hommes  d'affaires,  agents  d'af- 
faires, and  defenseurs  —  such  are  the 
various  species  into  which  the  class  of 
persons  who  administer  the  law  and  carry 
its  decisions  into  operation  are  divided. 
The  two  lowest  rungs  of  this  legal  ladder 
ai-e  the  practicien  and  the  homme  de  loi. 
The  practicien,  who  is  vulgarly  called 
recors  (bum-bailiff),  is  the  fortuitous 
homme  de  justice  ;  his  office  is  to  assist 
in  the  execution  of  the  sentence  in  a  civil 
suit ;  he  may  be  called  the  casual  common 
hangman  of  the  civil  courts. 

As  for  the  homme  de  loi,  he  is  the  very 
oi)probrium  of  the  profession.  He  is  in 
the  legal  what  the  homme  de  lettres  is 
in  the  literary'  world.  The  competition 
which  consumes  every  profession  in 
France  has  invented  a  corresponding 
set  of  disparaging  terms.  Every  voca- 
tion has  its  appropriate  stigma.  The 
contempt  which  brands  the  expressions 
homme  de  lettres  and  homme  de  loi  does 
not,  however,  extend  to  their  plurals. 
One  may  use  the  terms  les  gens  de  let- 
tres, les  gens  de  loi  without  wounding 
anybody's  feelings.  But  to  resume ;  at 
Paris  each  profession  has  its  Omegas — 
persons  who  lower  the  calling-  to  the  level 
of  the  streets — the  level  of  the  lowest 
ranks.  The  homme  de  loi,  the  pettifog- 
ging agent,  accordingly  still  exists  in 
certain  quarters  of  the  town ;  just  as 
the  market  has  its  petty  usurer  who 
stands  in  the  same  relative  position  to 
the  princes  of  the  banking-  world  as  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier  did  to  the  Society  of  Avoues. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  common 
people  are  as  reluctant  to  resort  to  the 
ministerial  officers  of  the  law  as  they  are 
to  enter  a  fashionable  restaurant ;  on  the 
other  hand,  thej^  repair  to  the  agent  as 
readily  as  to  the  pot-house. 

There  is  one  general  law  for  every  so- 
cial sphere — the  law  of  equality.  It  is 
only  the  choicest  spirits  that  delight  in 


UOUSIN    PONS. 


131 


scaling  the  summits  of  societ3^ ;  who  do 
not  suffer  when  they  find  themselves  in 
the  presence  of  their  superiors  ;  who  make 
good  their  footing  much  as  Beaumarchais 
secured  his,  by  dropping  the  watch  of  the 
grand  seigneur  who  was  trying  to  make 
hi  in  feel  his  inferiority'.  Hence  the  suc- 
cessful adventurer,  especially'  the  adven- 
turer who  leaves  behind  him  every  frag- 
ment of  the  swaddling  clothes  in  which  he 
once  was  wrapped,  is  a  colossal  exception 
to  the  general  rule. 

Six  o'clock  the  next  morning  found  Mad- 
ame Cibot  in  the  Rue  de  la  Perle,  examin- 
ing the  house  which  sheltered  her  future 
legal  adviser,  the  Sieur  Fraisier,  the 
homme  de  lot.  It  was  one  of  those  old 
houses  whicli  the  petite  bourgeoisie  of 
bygone  days  used  to  live  in.  The  en- 
trance to  the  house  lay  through  a  pas- 
sage. The  ground-floor  (part  of  whicli 
was  taken  up  by  the  porter's  lodge  and 
by  the  shop  of  a  cabinet-maker  whose 
work  -  rooms  and  warehouses  trenched 
upon  a  small  interior  court)  was  cut  in 
two  by  the  passage  and  the  staircase, 
whose  walls  were  so  damp  and  so  in- 
crusted  with  saltpeter  that  the  house 
appeared  to  be  suffering  from  leprosy. 

Madame  Cibot  went  straight  to  the 
lodge,  where  she  found  one  of  Cibot's 
brother-porters — a  shoe-maker — together 
with  his  wife  and  two  young  children,  all 
packed  into  a  space  of  ten  feet  square, 
which  was  lighted  only  by  a  window  look- 
ing on  to  the  little  court.  When  once 
Dame  Cibot  had  announced  her  name  and 
calling,  and  mentioned  her  house  in  the 
Rue  de  Normandie,  it  was  not  long  ere  a 
thorough  understanding  was  established 
between  the  two  women.  After  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour's  gossip,  dui'ing  which  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier's  portress  was>  preparing 
breakfast  for  the  shoe-maker  and  the  two 
children,  Madame  Cibot  turned  the  con- 
versation on  to  the  subject  of  the  inmates 
of  the  house,  and  mentioned  the  homme 
de  loi. 

"  I  am  come  to  consult  him  on  busi- 
ness," said  she  ;  "  one  of  his  friends.  Doc- 
tor Poulain,  said  as  he  would  mention  my 
name  to  Monsieur  Fraisier.  You  know 
Doctor  Poulain,  don't  you  ?  " 


"  I  should  think  I  did !  "  said  the  por- 
tress of  the  Rue  de  la  Perle.  •'  He  saved 
my  little  girl  when  she  had  the  croup." 

"Ay,  and  he  saved  me  too,  madame. 
What  sort  of  a  man  might  this  Monsieur 
Fraisier  be?  " 

"  He's  a  man  from  whom  we  find  it  no 
easy  matter  to  get  the  inonej'  we've  paid 
for  the  postage  of  his  letters  when  the 
end  of  the  month  comes,  my  good  lady." 

The  intelligent  Dame  Cibot  required  no 
further  answer. 

"  It's  possible  to  be  poor  and  n'honest," 
said  she. 

"I  should  hope  so,"  replied  Fraisier's 
portress ;  "we  are  not  rolling  in  gold  or 
silver,  no,  nor  yet  in  copper,  neither ;  but 
we  don't  owe  a  farthing  to  any  soul  alive." 

This  was  a  kind  of  language  which  Mad- 
ame Cibot  was  quite  at  home  in. 

"  Well,  mj'  dear,"  she  pursued,  "  I  sup- 
pose I  can  trust  him,  can't  I  ?  " 

"Ah,  indeed  you  can;  when  Monsieur 
Fraisier  wants  to  do  any  one  a  good  turn, 
I've  heard  Madame  Florimond  say  that 
he  hasn't  his  fellow — " 

"  Then,  why  didn't  she  marry  him  ?  " 
asked  Dame  Cibot,  with  emphasis,  '•  since 
she  owed  her  fortune  to  him  ?  It's  some- 
thing for  a  woman  as  keeps  a  small  hab- 
erdasher's shop  to  become  the  wife  of  a 
n'advocate — " 

"  Whj',  indeed  ?  "  said  the  portress,  as 
she  led  Madame  Cibot  into  the  passage. 
"  You  are  going  up  to  see  him,  ai-cn't 
you,  madame  ?  Well  I  when  j'ou  get  into 
his  room  j'ou'll  know  the  reason  why  !  " 

The  staircase,  which  was  lighted  by 
sash-windows  looking  on  to  a  small  court, 
revealed  the  fact  that  with  the  exception 
of  the  landlord  and  the  Sieur  Fraisier, 
the  inmates  of  the  house  were  engaged 
in  mechanical  operations.  The  muddy 
stairs,  strewed  with  shreds  of  copper, 
broken  buttons,  scraps  of  gauze,  and 
fragments  of  esparto  grass,  disclosed  the 
nature  of  the  several  trades  that  were 
carried  on  in  the  house,  while  the  walls 
of  the  upper  stories  wei-e  disfigured  with 
caricatures — the  handiwork  of  the  ap- 
prentices. 

The  last  words  of  the  portress  had  ex- 
cited Madame  Cibot's  curiosity,  and  had 


132 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


thus  naturally  determined  her  to  consult 
Dr.  Poulain's  friend.  Whether  she  should 
employ  him  or  not  was  a  question,  the 
decision  of  which  she  reserved  until  she 
had  seen  him. 

"  I  sometimes  ask  myself  how  Madame 
Sauvage  can  bear  to  remain  in  his  ser- 
vice," said  the  portress,  by  Avay  of  com- 
mentarj',  as  slie  followed  Madame  Cibot 
upstairs;  "I  am  going-  up  with  you, 
niadame,"  she  added,  "for  I  am  taking- 
the  landlord's  milk  and  his  newspaper  up 
to  his  apartments." 

On  reaching  the  second  story  above  the 
entresol.  Dame  Cibot  found  herself  before 
a  most  disreputable  -  looking  door  of  a 
dubious  red  color,  and  incaked  to  the 
width  of  about  two  inches  and  a  half 
with  that  dark-brown  layer  of  dirt  that 
results  from  the  oft-repeated  application 
of  the  hand,  and  forms  an  eye-sore  which 
the  architect  has  endeavored  to  banish 
from  elegant  apartments  by  placing 
plates  of  glass  above  and  below  the  key- 
holes. The  wicket  of  this  door  was  so 
clogged  with  rubbish  resembling  that 
which  restaurateurs  have  devised  in  or- 
der to  give  an  appearance  of  age  to  bot- 
tles which  are  still  in  their  early  youth, 
that  it  served  no  other  end  than  that  of 
procuring  for  the  door  the  nickname  of 
prison-door  —  a  nickname,  by  the  way, 
that  was  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the 
club  -  shaped  iron  bindings,  formidable 
hinges  and  large-headed  nails  with  which 
the  door  was  garnished.  These  append- 
ages must  have  been  invented  by  some 
miser  or  by  some  pamphleteer  at  feud 
with  the  whole  world. 

When  Madame  Cibot  pulled  the  gi'easj'- 
oUve-shaped  handle  of  the  door-bell  its 
faint  tinkle  showed  that  the  bell-metal 
was  cracked.  Indeed,  every  object  was 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  broad  out- 
lines of  this  hideous  picture.  The  sound 
of  heavy  footsteps  and  the  asthmatic 
breathing  of  a  portly  woman  now  fell 
upon  the  ear  of  Madame  Cibot,  and  lo  ! 
Madame  Sauvage  appeared !  Madame 
Sauvage  was  exactly  like  one  of  those  old 
hags  whom  Adrien  Brauwer  has  invented 
for  his  '■  Witches  starting  for  Sunday." 
She  was  five  feet  six ;  her  face  had  a  mili- 


tary aspect,  and  was  far  more  hairy  than 
Dame  Cibot's.  Madame  Sauvage  was  mor- 
bidly stout,  wore  a  hideous  dress  of  cheap 
cotton,  wrapped  her  head  in  a  turban, 
still  put  her  hair  in  cui-1-papcrs  made  out 
of  the  jirinted  circulars  received  by  her 
employer,  and  adorned  her  ears  with 
I'ings  or  rather  cart-wheels  of  gold.  This 
female  Cerberus  held  in  her  hand  a  bat- 
tered tin  saucepan.  The  various  odors  of 
the  staircase  received  an  addition  to  their 
number  from  the  spilled  milk;  but  this 
last  odor,  in  spite  of  its  sickening  acridity, 
was  almost  imperceptible  among  so  many 
smells. 

"And  what  might  your  pleasure  be, 
medeme  ?  "  inquired  Madame  Sauvage ; 
and  as  she  put  the  question,  the  deadly 
look  she  cast  at  Madame  Cibot  was  inten- 
sified b}'  the  appearance  of  her  chronically 
bloodshot  eyes.  The  fact  is  that  Dame 
Cibot  was  too  well  dressed  to  please 
Madame  Sauvage. 

"Monsieur  Fraisier's  friend.  Doctor 
Poulain,  has  sent  me  here  to  see  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier." 

"  Walk  in,  medeme,"  rephed  Dame 
Sauvage,  with  a  sudden  access  of  polite- 
ness, which  showed  that  she  had  been 
forewarned  of  this  early  call.  And,  after 
having  dropped  a  theatrical  courtesy,  the 
serai-masculine  servant  of  Sieur  Fraisier 
abruptly  threw  open  the  door  of  the  study 
that  looked  on  to  the  street,  and  in  which 
the  quondam  solicitor  of  Mantes  was 
seated. 

This  study  was  an  exact  counterpart 
of  those  small  offices  of  third-rate  bailiffs 
where  the  pigeon-holes  are  of  blackened 
wood,  where  the  papers  have  lain  so  long- 
undisturbed  that,  in  the  language  of  the 
clerks'  room,  they  have  grown  beards ; 
where  the  red  tape  droops  dejectedly ; 
where  the  paper-cases  bear  traces  of  the 
gambols  of  mice,  while  the  floor  is  gray 
with  dust,  and  the  ceiling  yellow  with 
smoke. 

All  tarnished  was  the  pier-glass  in  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier's  studj^  and  meager  was 
the  log  of  wood  that  rested  on  the  cast- 
iron  firedogs.  The  time-piece,  of  modern 
marquetrj'  work,  liad  evidently  been 
picked  up  at  some  execution  sale,   and 


COUSIN    PONS. 


133 


was  worth  about  sixty  francs.  The  de- 
sign of  the-  chimney-candlesticks  that 
flanked  the  time-piece  was  a  clumsy  ro- 
coco, and  the  zinc  of  which  they  were 
composed  peeped  through  its  coat  of 
paint  in  several  places. 

Monsieur  Fraisier  himself  was  a  lean, 
unhealthy  httle  man  with  a  rubicund 
face,  whose  pustules  betrayed  the  un- 
wholesome condition  of  his  blood.  He 
had  an  inveterate  habit  of  scratching  his 
right  arm,  and  his  wig  was  placed  so  far 
back  upon  his  head  as  to  disclose  a  large 
area  of  brick-colored  cranium  of  most 
forbidding  aspect. 

On  Madame  Cibofs  entrance  Fraisier 
rose  from  the  cane  armchair  in  which  he 
was  sitting  on  a  round  cushion  of  green 
morocco,  and  assuming  an  engaging  air 
and  a  honeyed  tone  of  voice,  remarked, 
as  he  brought  forward  a  chair:  "Mad- 
ame Cibot,  I  believe  ?  " 

"  Yes,  monsieur, "  replied  the  portress, 
whose  ordinary  self-possession  had  en- 
tirely deserted  her.  She  was  daunted  \>y 
the  timbre  of  his  voice,  which  was  not 
unlike  that  of  the  door-bell,  and  by  a 
glance  that  was  greener  even  than  the 
greenish  eyes  of  her  future  counsel. 

Madame  Cibot  was  now  no  longer  at  a 
loss  to  understand  whj^  Madame  Flori- 
mond  had  declined  the  honor  of  becoming 
Madame  Fraisier. 

"  Poulain  has  mentioned  your  name  to 
me,  my  dear  madame,"  said  the  homme 
de  loi,  in  that  affected  tone  which  is  popu- 
larly^ called  petite  voix,  and  which,  in 
spite  of  all  his  efforts  to  soften  it,  re- 
mained harsh  and  thin  as  common  coun- 
try wine. 

As  he  uttered  these  words,  the  man  of 
law  endeavored  to  adjust  his  habiliments 
by  drawing  the  skirts  of  his  dressing-gown 
over  his  bony  knees,  which  were  cased  in 
excessively  thi-eadbare  swanskin.  The 
dressing-gown  iu  question  was  old,  and 
here  and  there  its  lining  impertinently 
peeped  through  the  rents  in  the  printed 
calico  of  which  it  was  made.  In  spite  of 
Fi-aisier's  efforts  the  weight  of  the  lining 
dragged  the  skirts  of  the  gown  apart, 
and  thus  exposed  to  view  a  close-fitting 
flannel  vest,  black  with  long  wear.    With 


a  somewhat  coxcombical  air,  Fraisier  pro- 
ceeded to  tie  the  cord  of  the  refractory 
dressing-gown  tightly  round  his  waist,  so 
as  to  display  his  reed-like  figure ;  then 
taking  up  the  tongs,  he  effected  a  junc- 
tion between  a  pair  of  brands  that,  like 
two  brothers  who  have  had  a  quarrel,  had 
long  been  disunited;  then  finally,  as  if 
some  thought  had  suddenly'  occurred  to 
him,  he  jumped  up  from  his  seat  and 
called  out : 

"  Madame  Sauvage  !  " 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"  I  am  not  at  home  to  anybod.y." 

"Well,  you  needn't  tell  me  that,"  re- 
plied that  virago,  in  a  commanding  tone 
of  voice. 

"  It  is  my  old  wet-nurse,"  said  the  dis- 
concerted man  of  law. 

"  Old  and  inweterate  ugly  still,"  re- 
plied the  ex-heroine  of  the  market. 

Fraisier  laughed  at  the  pun,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  bolt  the  door,  hi  order  that  his 
housekeeper  might  not  come  in  and  inter- 
rupt Dame  Cibot's  confidential  communi- 
cations. 

"Well,  madame,  w-ill  you  be  good 
enough  to  explain  your  business  to  me," 
said  Fraisier,  seating  himself,  and  still 
endeavoring  to  adjust  his  dressing-gown. 
"  A  person  who  comes  to  me  with  a  rec- 
ommendation from  the  only  friend  I  have 
in  the  world,  may  reXy  upon  me — a^' — 
implicitly." 

Madame  Cibot  harangued  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  without  any,  even  the  slightest, 
interruption,  from  the  man  of  law,  whose 
air  was  precisely'  that  of  a  recruit  listen- 
ing, with  both  ears,  to  a  veteran  of  the 
old  guard.  This  silence  and  submissive- 
ness  on  the  part  of  Fraisier,  and  the 
attention  which  he  paid  to  the  cataract 
of  talk  (of  which  we  have  had  samples  in 
the  scenes  between  Cibot  and  poor  Pons) 
induced  the  suspicious  portress  to  lay 
aside  some  of  the  prejudice  which  so  many 
repulsive  details  had  instilled  into  her 
mind.  When,  at  length,  she  had  finished 
her  narrative  and  was  waiting  for  some 
ad\ice,  the  little  lawyer,  who  all  this  time 
had  been  studying  his  future  client  with 
his  green,  black-speckled  eyes,  was  seized 
with  a  churchyard  cough,  and  was  obliged 


134 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


to  have  recourse  to  a  delf  bowl  half  full  of 
herb-juice,  which  he  completely  drained. 

'•  But  for  Poulain  I  should,  ere  now, 
have  been  in  my  grave,  my  dear  Madame 
Cibot,"  remarked  Fraisier,  by  way  of 
answer  to  the  motherly  glances  of  the 
portress ;  "  but  he  tells  me  he  will  restore 
me  to  health — " 

The  man  of  law  seemed  to  have  entirely 
forg-otten  all  the  confidences  of  his  client, 
who  now  began  to  think  of  leaving-  so 
confirmed  a  valetudinarian  to  his  own 
devices. 

'•  Madame,"  resumed  the  whilom  solici- 
tor of  Mantes  with  a  sudden  access  of 
sei'iousness,  '■'  where  a  succession  is  in 
question  there  are  two  points  to  be  con- 
sidered ;  first,  whether  the  estate  be 
worth  the  ti-ouble  one  is  about  to  take ; 
and  secondly,  who  are  the  lawful  heirs ; 
for,  if  the  succession  be  the  booty,  the 
heirs  represent  the  foe." 

Thereupon  Dame  Cibot  brought  Remo- 
nencq  and  Elie  Magus  into  play,  and 
stated  that  those  two  cunning  confeder- 
ates valued  the  collection  of  pictures  at 
six  hundred  thousand  francs. 

"Are  they  prepared  to  give  that 
amount  for  it  ?  "  asked  the  former  solici- 
tor of  Mantes ;  "  for,  do  you  see,  madame, 
we  men  of  business  don't  believe  in  pict- 
ures ;  a  picture,  look  you,  is  two  francs' 
worth  of  canvas  or  a  hundred  thousand 
francs'  worth  of  painting !  Now,  the 
pictures  which  are  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  are  well  known ;  and 
what  grand,  mistakes  have  been  made 
with  regard  to  all,  even  the  most  cele- 
brated, valuables  of  this  kind  !  Why, 
a  well-known  financier,  whose  gallery 
was  bepraised,  visited,  even  engraved, 
engraved!  mark  you,  was  thought  to 
have  expended  millions  on  his  collection  ; 
he  dies  (for  die  one  must)  well,  his  genuine 
pictures  realized  only  two  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  !  You  must  bring  these  gen- 
tlemen to  me.  Now  what  about  the 
heirs  ?  " 

So  sajang,  Fraisier  resumed  his  atten- 
tive attitude.  When  ho  heard  the  name 
of  President  Camusot,  he  shook  his  head 
and  made  a  grimace  which  riveted  the 
attention   of   Dame   Cibot ;  she  tried   to 


read  that  brow,  that  atrocious  physiog- 
nomy, and  found  it  nothing  but  what  we 
call  in  business  a  tete  de  hois. 

"Yes,  my  dear  sir,"  repeated  Dame 
Cibot,  "  my  Monsieur  Pons  is  own  cousin 
to  President  Camusot  de  Marville  ;  he  re- 
minds me  of  the  relationship  twice  a  day. 
The  first  wife  of  Monsieur  Camusot,  the 
silk  mercer — " 

"  Who  has  just  been  made  a  peer  of 
France — " 

"  Was  a  Demoiselle  Pons,  cousin-ger- 
man  to  Monsieur  Pons." 

"  The^'  are  first  cousins  once  re- 
moved— " 

"They're  nothing  whatever  to  each 
other  now;  they've  had  a  fall  out." 

Now  Monsieur  Camusot  de  Marville, 
before  he  came  to  Pai'is,  had  been  for 
five  years  president  of  the  tribunal  at 
Mantes ;  and  had  done  more  than  leave 
behind  him  in  that  town  the  mere  recol- 
lection of  his  name  ;  he  had  kept  up  a 
connection  with  the  place  in  the  person 
of  the  judge  with  whom,  of  all  the  judges 
of  his  court,  he  had  been  most  intimate. 
The  judge  in  question  had  succeeded  Ca- 
musot in  the  presidency  of  the  coui't ;  and 
was  its  president  still.  To  him,  therefore, 
Fraisier  was  thoroughly  well  known. 

"  Are  you  aware,  madame,"  said  Frai- 
sier, when  Dame  Cibot  had  closed  the 
rudd,y  flood-gates  of  her  impetuous  mouth, 
"  are  you  aware  that  you  would  have  for 
your  principal  antagonist  a  man  who  has 
it  in  his  power  to  send  people  to  the  scaf- 
fold ?  " 

At  these  words  the  portress  started  up 
from  her  chair  as  if  she  had  been  a  Jack- 
in-the-box. 

"Calm  yourself,  my  dear  lady,"  re- 
sumed Fraisier.  "  That  j'ou  should  not 
know  what  powers  a  president  of  the  crim- 
inal division  of  the  Parisian  Court  Roj'al 
possesses  is  perfectly  natural,  but  3'ou 
ought  to  have  been  aware  that  Monsieur 
Pons  has  a  legal  heir  natural.  Monsieur 
de  Marville  is  the  one  sole  heir  of  your 
patient ;  but  he  is  collateral  heir  in  the 
third  degree  ;  hence  Monsieur  Pons  may, 
without  infringing  the  law,  dispose  of  his 
fortune  as  he  pleases.  You  are  also  ig- 
norant of  the  fact  that  the  daughter  of 


COUSIN    PONS. 


135 


President  Camusot  was  married  at  least 
six  weeks  ago  to  the  eldest  son  of  Count 
Popinot,  peer  of  France,  and  ex-minister 
of  agriculture  and  commerce — one  of  the 
most  influential  statesmen  of  the  day. 
This  matrimonial  alliance  renders  the 
president  still  more  formidable  than  he 
would  be  as  sovereign  of  the  Assize  Court 
merely." 

Again  did  Madame  Cibot  quake  when 
she  heard  this  phrase. 

'•■  Yes,  'tis  he  who  sends  people  to  that 
place,"  pursued  Fraisier;  "ah,  my  dear 
lad^',  you  don't  know  what  a  red  i-obe  is  ! 
It  is  bad  enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  have 
a  plain  black  g"0wn  arra^'ed  against  one  ! 
If  you  behold  me  here  ruined,  bald,  half 
dead;  why  'tis  because  I  unwittingly 
offended  an  insignificant  provincial  pro- 
cui'ator-royal.  I  was  compelled  to  sell 
my  practice  at  a  sacrifice,  and  was  only 
too  glad  to  escape  with  the  loss  of  my 
fortune  only.  Had  I  taken  it  into  my 
head  to  offer  any  resistance,  I  should 
have  had  viy  advocate's  gown  stripped 
off  my  back.  You  have  still  something 
more  to  learn,  and  it  is  this :  had  we 
to  deal  with  President  Camusot  single- 
handed,  that  would  be  a  mere  trifle ;  but, 
let  me  tell  you.  President  Camusot  has  a- 
ivife  ;  and,  if  you  found  j'ourself  face  to 
face  with  that  wife,  you  would  tremble  as 
much  as  if  j'our  foot  were  on  the  first 
step  of  the  scaffold ;  the  xery  hairs  of 
your  head  would  stand  on  end.  So  re- 
vengeful is  Madame  Camusot  that  she 
would  spend  ten  years  in  entangling  you 
in  some  snare  which  would  be  j'our  ruin. 
She  sets  her  husband  to  work  just  as  a 
child  will  spin  a  top.  In  the  course  of 
her  life  she  has  caused  a  charming  young 
man  to  commit  suicide  in  the  Concierge- 
rie ;  completely  whitewashed  a  count  who 
was  charged  with  forger\',  and  well-nigh 
brought  about  the  interdiction  of  one  of 
the  greatest  noblemen  of  the  court  of 
Charles  X.  Her  latest  exploit  was  to 
procure  the  dismissal  of  Monsieur  Gran- 
ville, the  attorney-general — " 

"  The  gentleman  what  lived  in  the 
Vieille  Rue  du  Temple  at  the  corner  of 
the  Rue  Saint  Francois  ? "  asked  Dame 
Cibot. 


"  The  very  same.  They  say  she  wants 
to  get  her  husband  made  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice, and  I  don't  know  that  she  won't 
succeed.  If  she  took  it  into  her  head  to 
send  the  pair  of  us  to  the  Assize  Court, 
and  thence  to  the  galleys,  1—7,  who  am 
as  innocent  as  the  unborn  babe — would 
get  a  passport  and  go  to  the  United 
States ;  so  well  do  I  know  what  justice 
is.  Now,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot,  the 
president's  wife,  in  order  to  secure  for 
her  only  daughter  the  hand  of  young  Vis- 
count Popinot  (who,  they  saj-,  is  to  be  the 
heir  of  your  landlord.  Monsieur  Pille- 
rault),  has  so  entirely  stripped  herself  of 
her  fortune  that  she  and  her  husband  are 
now  obliged  to  live  upon  the  bare  salary 
of  the  president.  And  do  you,  my  dear 
lady,  imagine  that,  under  these  circum- 
stances, Madame  Camusot  will  allow  the 
succession  of  your  Monsieur  Pons  to  slip 
through  her  fingers  ?  Why,  I  would 
rather  face  a  battery  of  guns  charged 
with  grape-shot  than  have  such  a  wo- 
man for  my  adversary — " 

"But  they've  had  a  split,"  interposed 
Dame  Creot. 

"What  does  that  matter?"  replied 
Fraisier.  "  All  the  more  reason  why  she 
should  look  after  the  money.  To  kill  a 
relative  against  whom  one  has  a  grievance 
is — something ;  but  to  come  in  for  his 
fortune  is — delightful !  " 

"But  the  good  man  hates  his  heirs. 
He  keeps  on  telUng  me  that  these  folks — I 
remember  their  names.  Monsieur  Cardot, 
Monsieur  Berthier,  etc.  —  have  crushed 
him  as  if  he  had  been  an  egs  under  a 
dung-cart." 

"  Have  you  a  fancy  to  be  crushed  like 
that  ?  " 

"  My  God  !  my  God  !  "  exclaimed  the 
portress.  "Ah!  well  might  Madame  Fon- 
taine say  as  I  sliould  meet  with  diffi- 
culties ;  but  still  she  told  me  as  I  should 
succeed — " 

"  Listen  to  me,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot ; 
as  to  j'our  getting  a  matter  of  thirty 
thousand  francs,  it  is  possible  you  may ; 
but  as  to  the  succession,  you  mustn't  even 
think  of  it.  We  talked  your  affair  over — 
Doctor  Poulaiu  and  I— yesterday  even- 
ing-" 


136 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Here,  Madame  Cibot  made  anotlier 
bound   upon   her  chair. 

"  Well,  well !  what  is  the  matter  with 
you?  " 

"  Why,  if  5'ou  knew  all  about  my  busi- 
ness, whj'  did  you  let  me  jabber  away  like 


a  mag-pie 


?" 


"  Madame  Cibot ;  I  knew  all  about  j'our 
business,  but  I  knew  nothing  about  Ma- 
dame Cibot !  So  many  clients,  so  many 
characters — " 

On  hearing-  these  words  Madame  Cibot 
looked  at  her  future  adviser  with  a  pecul- 
iar look — a  look  which  divulged  all  her 
suspicions  and  by  no  means  escaped  the 
notice  of  Fraisier. 


XIX. 


fraisiek's  point. 

"To  resume,  then, "said  Fraisier,  "our 
friend  Poulain  was  introduced  by  you  to 
old  Monsieur  Pillerault,  the  great-uncle 
of  Madame  Popinot — that  is  one  of  your 
claims  to  ray  good  offices.  Now,  mark 
what  I  say ;  Poulain .  goes  to  see  your 
landlord  once  a  fortnight,  and  it  is  from 
him  that  the  doctor  learned  all  these  de- 
tails. The  retired  merchant  was  present 
at  the  wedding  of  his  great-grandnephew 
(for  he  is  an  uncle  who  has  a  fortune  to 
leave,  let  me  tell  you ;  he  has  a  good  fif- 
teen thousand  francs  a  year,  and  for  the 
last  five-and-twenty  years  has  lived  the 
life  of  a  monk ;  he  spends  barely  three 
thousand  francs  per  annum).  Well,  he 
it  was  who  told  Poulain  all  about  the 
marriage.  It  would  seem  that  all  this 
shindy  was  entirely  caused  by  your 
worthy  musician  himself,  from  a  feeling 
of  spite  against  the  president's  family. 
He  who  listens  to  one  bell  only  hears  but 
one  sound :  now  your  invalid  protests 
that  he  is  innocent,  but  the  world  re- 
gards him  as  a  monster." 

"  And  a  monster  he  may  well  be  for 
n'aught  I  know  ;  it  wouldn't  surprise  me 
one  bit,"  exclaimed  Dame  Cibot.  "  Only 
just  fancy  ;  here  have  I  been  a-spending 
my  own  money  on  him  any  time  these 


last  ten  years,  as  he  well  knows  ;  all  my 
savings  he  has,  and  he  won't  put  me 
down  for  n'a  penny  in  his  will ;  no,  sir, 
that  he  won't ;  he's  that  stubborn  he's  a 
reg'lar  mule.  Here  have  I  been  a-talk- 
ing  to  him  on  the  subject  for  the  last  ten 
days,  and  the  lubber  won't  budge  a  single 
inch,  no,  not  no  more  than  if  he  was  a 
lottery  teme.  He  just  keeps  his  teeth 
clinched,  and  looks  at  me  just  as  if — • 
Why  the  most  he's  said  to  me,  was 
as  he'd  recommend  me  to  Monsieur 
Schmucke." 

"  Then  it  is  his  intention  to  make  a  will 
in  favor  of  this  Schmucke,  is  it  ?  " 

"  He'll  give  him  everything — •" 

"  Listen  to  me,  my  dear  Madame 
Cibot ;  I  must,  in  order  to  form  a  de- 
finitive opinion  and  a  plan,  get  to  know 
Monsieur  Schmucke,  see  the  objects  of 
which  the  estate  consists,  and  have  a 
conference  with  the  Jew  you  speak  of; 
and  then  allow  me  to  be  j^our  guide — " 

"  We  will  see  about  it,  my  good  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  :  'we  will  see 
about  it  ? '  "  cried  Fraisier,  darting  a 
viper  glance  at  Dame  Cibot,  and  speaking 
in  his  natural  tone  of  voice.  "  Come  now! 
am  I  or  am  I  not  your  counsel  ?  Let  us 
thoroughly  understand  one  another." 

Dame  Cibot  saw  that  she  was  found 
out,  and  felt  a  cold  shiver  run  down  her 
back.  Seeing  that  she  was  at  the  mercy 
of  a  tiger  she  said  :  "  You  have  my  n'en- 
tire  confidence." 

"  We  solicitors  are  accustomed  to  the 
treachery  of  our  clients.  Now  examine 
3'our  position  well ;  it  is  superb.  If  3'ou 
follow  my  advice  to  the  letter,  3'ou  will 
have  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  francs 
out  of  this  estate,  I  warrant  you.  But 
there  is  another  side  to  this  beautiful 
medal.  Suppose  that  Madame  Camusot 
should  learn  that  Monsieur  Pons's  estate 
is  worth  a  million  francs,  and  that  you 
want  to  get  a  slice  of  it — for  there  are 
always  persons  to  be  found  who  take  upon 
them  to  say  things  of  this  kind — "  added 
Fraisier,  parenthetically. 

This  parenthesis,  preceded  and  followed 
bj'  a  pause,  made  Dame  Cibot  shiver — she 
jumi^ed  to  the  conclusion  that  Fraisier 


cousm  PONS. 


137 


himself  would  undertake  the  ofiBce  of  in- 
former. 

"  In  that  case,  my  dear  client,  in  ten 
minutes  old  Pillerault  would  be  prevailed 
on  to  turn  you  out  of  the  lodg'e,  and  you 
would  have  a  couple  of  hours  to  pack  up 
your  traps." 

"What  odds  would  that  be  to  me?" 
said  Dame  Cibot,  starting-  to  her  feet  and 
assuming-  a  Bellona  attitude.  "  I  should 
remain  with  the  two  gentlemen  n'as  their 
confidential  housekeeper." 

"Yes,  and  that  being  so,  a  trap  would 
be  laid  for  j'ou,  and  you  would  wake  up 
some  fine  morning-  to  find  yourself  in  a 
cell,  you  and  your  husband,  charged  with 
some  capital  crime — " 

"Me,"  cried  Dame  Cibot,  "me,  as 
don't  owe  nobody  a  single  centime,  me  ! 
me'.—" 

And  she  went  on  speaking  for  five  min- 
utes, while  Fraisier  watched  the  grand 
artist  as  she  executed  her  concerto  of 
self-laudation.  He  was  cool  and  satiri- 
cal ;  his  eye  pierced  Dame  Cibot  as  if  it 
had  been  a  stiletto  ;  he  laughed  inwardly, 
and,  as  he  laughed,  his  dry  wig  quivered. 
He  was  Robespierre,  the  Robespierre  of 
the  daj's  when  that  Gallic  Sylla  wrote 
quatrains. 

"And  why,  and  wherefore,  and  on 
what  pretext?"  asked  Dame  Cibot  in 
conclusion. 

"  Do  you  wish  to  know  how  you  might 
come  to  be  guillotined — ?  " 

Pale  as  a  corpse.  Dame  Cibot  sunk  back 
into  her  chair  ;  for  these  words  fell,  as  if 
they  had  been  the  blade  of  the  law  itself, 
upon  her  neck.  She  stared  at  Fraisier 
with  bewildered  eyes. 

"  Now  listen  to  me  attentively',  my  dear 
child,"  resumed  Fraisier,  suppressing  all 
outward  expression  of  the  satisfaction 
that  he  derived  from  his  client's  terror. 

"  I  would  rather  let  the  whole  thing 
rest — "  murmured  Madame  Cibot,  mak- 
ing an  efl'ort  to  rise,  when  Fraisier  im- 
periously interposed : 

"Stop,"  said  he.  "You  oug-ht  to  be 
informed  of  the  risk  you  run ;  it  is  my 
duty  to  give  you  the  benefit  of  my  knowl- 
edge. Well  then,  let  us  take  it  that  you 
are  dismissed    by   Monsieur    Pillerault ; 


there  can  be  no  doubt  of  that,  can  there  ? 
You  enter  the  service  of  these  two  gen- 
tlemen ;  good  !  That  in  itself  is  a  dec- 
laration of  war  between  Madame  Ca- 
musot  and  you.  You  on  3'our  part  are 
determined  to  do  j'our  utmost  to  get 
hold  of  this  succession,  to  make  some- 
thing- out  of  it  by  hook  or  by  crook — " 

Here  Dame  Cibot  made  a  gesture  of 
dissent. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  blaming  j'ou ;  that's  no 
part  of  mj'  business,"  said  Fraisier  in  an- 
swer to  his  client's  gesture.  "But  this 
enterprise  is  a  combat,  and  you  will  be 
induced  to  go  to  greater  lengths  than 
you  imagine.  Under  such  circumstances, 
people  get  intoxicated  with  their  own 
idea;  they  hit  hard — " 

Here  Madame  Cibot  indulged  in  another 
gesture  of  repudiation,  and  drew  her- 
self up. 

"  Come,  come  now,  little  mother,"  pur- 
sued Fraisier,  with  horrible  familiarity, 
"you  would  go  great  lengths  now,  you 
know  you  would — " 

"Oh  !  then  you  take  me  for  a  thief,  do 
you?" 

"  Come  now,  mother,  you  have  an  I  O 
U  of  Monsieur  Schmucke's  that  cost  you 
very  little.  Ah  !  ah  !  j'ou  see,  j-ou're  at 
confession  here,  my  prettj'-  dame.  Don't 
deceive  your  confessor,  especially  when 
that  confessor  has  the  power  of  readings 
your  very  heart." 

Dame  Cibot  was  terrified  at  the  perspi- 
cacity of  this  man  ;  she  now  clearly  per- 
ceived the  motive  of  the  profound  attention 
with  which  he  had  listened  to  her. 

"Well !  "  resumed  Fraisier,  "you  need 
not  hesitate  to  admit  that,  in  this  race  for 
a  fortune,  Madame  Camusot  will  not  suffer 
herseK  to  be  outstripped  bj'  you.  You 
will  be  watched ;  spies  will  be  set  upon 
your  actions.  You  carry  j-our  point  and 
are  mentioned  in  Monsieur  Pons's  will — 
granted.  Nothing  could  be  better.  But 
one  fine  day  in  walks  ^ladame  Law  and 
collars  some  barley  water,  at  the  bottom 
of  which  some  arsenic  is  found  ;  you  and 
your  husband  are  arrested,  tried  —  con- 
demned, for  having  attempted  to  murder 
Monsieur  Pons,  in  order  that  you  might 
pocket  j-our  legacy.    I  once  defended  a 


138 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


pool-  woman  at  Vei'sailles,  who  was  to 
the  full  as  innocent  as  you  would  be  in 
the  case  supposed  ;  matters  stood  exactly 
as  I  have  just  stated  them ;  and  yet,  all 
that  I  could  do  for  her  was  just  to  save 
her  from  the  scaffold;  the  poor  wretch 
was  condemned  to  twenty  years'  hard 
labor,  and  is  now  at  Saint  Lazare  under- 
g^oiiig'  her  sentence  !  " 

The  terror  of  Madame  Cibot  had  now 
reached  its  climax.  Pale  and  hag-g-ai-d, 
she  kept  her  eyes  fixed  upon  the  lean 
little  g-reen-eyed  lawyer,  much  as  the 
poor  Moorish  woman,  convicted  of  in- 
fidelity to  her  religion,  must  have  gazed 
at  the  inquisitor  when  she  heard  herself 
sentenced  to  be  burned  alive. 

"  You  saj',  then,  dear  Monsieur  Frai- 
sier,  that  by  leaving  of  matters  entirely 
in  your  hands,  and  n'intrusting  the  care 
of  my  n'interests  to  you,  I  should  come 
in  for  something',  without  having'  any- 
thing' to  fear  ?  " 

"I  guarantee  you  thirty  thousand 
francs,"  said  Fraisier,  with  the  assured 
air  of  a  man  who  perfecth'  well  knows 
what  he  is  talking  about. 

"And,  after  all,"  resumed  Dame  Cibot 
in  her  most  wheedling-  tones,  "  you  knows 
how  fond  I  am  of  dear  Di-.  Poulain ;  it 
was  him  as  told  me  to  come  to  you,  and 
sure  I  am  the  worthy  man  didn't  send 
me  liere  to  be  told  as  I'm  going  to  be 
guillotined  for  poisoning  people." 

Here  Madame  Cibot  burst  into  a  flood 
of  tears ;  for  this  vision  of  the  guillotine 
had  made  her  very  blood  run  cold  ;  her 
nerves  were  in  a  state  of  agitation ;  her 
heart  sunk  within  her;  she  entirelj"^  lost 
her  head.  Fraisier,  on  the  other  hand, 
enjoj-ed  his  triumph.  When  he  had  seen 
his  client  hesitating,  he  felt  that  this 
piece  of  business  was  on  the  point  of  slip- 
ping through  his  fingers,  and  resolved  to 
tame  Madame  Cibot,  to  terrifj'  her,  to 
stun  her,  to  bind  her  hand  and  foot,  and 
have  her  entirely  under  his  control.  The 
portress,  having  stepped  into  that  stud^' 
(as  a  fly  throws  itself  into  a  spider's  web) 
was  doomed  to  remain  there,  entram- 
meled  and  enmeshed,  to  feed  the  ambition 
of  this  little  homme  de  lot.  In  fact, 
Fraisier  was   resolved  to  extract,  from 


this  piece  of  business,  money  enough  to 
live  upon  in  his  old  age,  independence, 
enjoyment,  and  social  consideration.  He 
and  Poulain,  on  the  i^revious  evening,  had 
maturely  weighed  and  carefully — micro- 
scopically— examined  the  whole  matter ; 
the  doctor  had  informed  his  friend  Frai- 
sier what  manner  of  man  Schmucke  was, 
and  the  active  minds  of  Fraisier  and 
Poulain  had  tested  every  hj'ijothesis,  and 
scanned  each  favorable  feature  of  the 
enterprise,  and  each  attendant  risk. 
"  The  fortunes  of  both  of  us  are  involved 
in  this  business  !  "  Fraisier  had  exclaimed 
in  a  paroxysm  of  enthusiasm  ;  and  he  had 
promised  Poulain  the  post  of  chief  phy- 
sician to  some  hospital,  and  himself  the 
post  of  juge  de  paix  to  the  arrondisse- 
ment. 

To  become  a  juge  de  paix!  was,  to  this 
man  of  great  capacity,  to  this  doctor  of 
laws  in  want  of  socks,  a  chimera  so  diffi- 
cult to  mount,  that  he  thought  of  it  as 
the  advocate  who  has  fought  his  way  into 
the  chamber  of  deputies  thinks  of  the 
robe  of  the  chancellor,  as  the  Italian  priest 
thinks  of  the  tiara.  'Tvvas  a  mania ! 
Monsieur  Vitel,  the  juge  de  paix  in  whose 
court  Fraisier  practiced  was  a  valetudi- 
narian of  sixty-nine,  and  talked  about 
retiring.  Fraisier  would  chat  to  Poulain 
about  succeeding  Monsieur  Vitel,  much 
as  Poulain  would  chat  to  Fraisier  about 
the  wealthy  heiress  whom  Poulain  was  to 
rescue  from  the  jaws  of  death,  and  marry. 
Few  persons  have  even  the  remotest  idea 
how  keen  is  the  competition  for  those 
places  the  occupation  of  which  is  com- 
patible with  residence  in  Paris.  To  live 
in  Paris  is  a  universal  wish.  Does  a 
licensed  tobacco-shop  or  a  stamp-shop  fall 
vacant  ?  A  hundred  women  rise,  like  one 
man,  and  set  all  their  friends  in  motion, 
in  order  to  obtain  the  berth  !  Is  there  a 
probability  of  a  vacancy  in  one  of  the  four- 
and-twenty  tax-collectorships  of  the  me- 
tropolis ?  There  is  a  tumult  of  rival 
ambitions  in  the  chamber  of  deputies  i 
These  places  are  filled  up  by  the  coun- 
cil ;  nominations  to  them  are  affairs  of 
state!  Now  the  annual  salary  of  ajtige  de 
paix  at  Paris  is  about  six  thousand  francs. 
The  registry  attached  to  this  tribunal  is 


COUSIN    PONS. 


139 


a  post  worth  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 
It  is  of  all  judicial  offices  one  of  the  most 
eag-erly  coveted.  Fraisier,  once  appointed 
a  juge  de  paix,  and  having  the  chief  phy- 
sician of  some  hospital  for  a  friend,  would 
be  certain  to  find  a  rich  wife  for  himself, 
and  a  wife  for  Doctor  Poulain  also ;  thej 
would  lend  each  other  a  helping-  hand 
in  turn.  Night  had  passed  its  leaden 
roller  over  all  the  thoughts  of  the  former 
sohcitor  of  Mantes ;  a  formidable  scheme 
had  germinated  iu  his  mind — a  prolific 
scheme  fertile  iu  harvests  and  abounding 
in  intrigues.  Of  this  drama  Dame  Cibot 
was  the  mainspring- ;  so  that  it  was  ab- 
solutely necessary  that  the  revolt  of  this 
instrument  should  be  suppressed.  That 
revolt  was  unexpected  ;  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  quondam  solicitor,  b\'  exerting 
all  the  powers  of  his  maleficent  nature, 
had  brought  the  audacious  portress  to  his 
feet. 

"  Come  now,  m3''  dear  Madame  Cibot, 
dismiss  your  fears,"  said  he,  taking  her 
hand  in  his.  The  touch  of  this  hand, 
which  was  as  cold  as  the  skin  of  a 
snake,  produced  a  terrible  impression  on 
the  portress,  and  brought  about  a  physi- 
cal reaction  which  subdued  her  mental 
emotion.  She  thought  that  Ashtaroth, 
Madame  Fontaine's  toad,  would  be  less 
dangerous  to  handle  than  this  jar  of 
poisons,  capped  with  a  reddish  wig  and 
speaking  with  the  voice  of  a  creaking 
door. 

'■'  Don't  suppose  that  I  am  causing  you 
unnecessary  alarm,"  resumed  Fraisier, 
after  noting  this  new  gesture  of  repug- 
nance on  the  part  of  Madame  Cibot. 
"  The  affairs  which  have  procured  Mad- 
ame Camusot  so  terrible  a  reputation  are 
so  perfectly  well  known  at  the  palace, 
that  you  can  ask  any  one  j'ou  please 
about  them.  The  great  nobleman,  who 
was  within  an  ace  of  being  interdicted,  is 
the  Marquis  d'Espard.  'Twas  the  Mar- 
quis d'Esgrignon  whom  she  rescued  from 
the  galleys.  The  young  man  who — rich, 
handsome,  full  of  promise,  and  on  the  eve 
of  marriage  with  a  young  lady  belonging 
to  one  of  the  first  families  in  France — 
committed  suicide  bj'  hanging  himself  in 
one  of  the  cells  of  the  Conciergerie,  was 


the  celebrated  Lucien  de  Rubempre,  whose 
case  caused  a  ferment  throughout  the 
whole  of  Paris  at  the  time.  There,  too, 
it  was  a  question  as  to  a  succession — the 
succession  of  a  kept  mistress,  the  famous 
Esther,  who  left  several  millions  behind 
her.  This  young  man  was  accused  of 
having  poisoned  her,  for  he  was  ap- 
pointed heir  under  her  will.  Yet  the 
young  poet  was  not  in  Paris  when  the 
girl  died  ;  he  did  not  even  know  that  he 
was  her  heir  I — it  is  impossible  to  be  more 
innocent  than  that.  Well,  after  being 
subjected  to  an  interrogatory  by  M. 
Camusot,  the  j'oung  man  hanged  him- 
self in  his  cell.  The  Law  resembles 
Medicine ;  it  has  its  victims.  In  the 
former  case  one  dies  for  Society ;  in  the 
latter,  for  Science,"  said  Fraisier  with  a 
ghastly  smile.  "  Well  !  you  see  that  I 
know  the  danger.  Law  has  already 
ruined  7ne  —  me,  a  poor  obscure  little 
solicitor.  My  experience  has  cost  me 
dear ;  it  is  entirely  at  j'our  service — " 

"In  faith,  no  thank  you,"  said  Dame 
Cibot ;  "  I'll  give  up  everything.  I  shall 
have  made  an  ungrateful  man  the  more — 
I  only  wants  my  due!  I've  a  thirty  j-eans' 
character  for  n'honesty,  monsieur.  My 
Monsieur  Pons  says  that  he'll  recommend 
me  in  his  will  to  his  friend  Schmucke;  very 
well,  I'll  end  my  days  in  peace,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  that  worthy  German — " 

Fraisier  was  overshooting  the  mark ; 
he  had  discouraged  Dame  Cibot,  and 
found  himself  obliged  to  efface  the  ter- 
rible impression  that  had  been  made 
upon  her. 

"Don't  let  us  despair  of  anything," 
said  he;  "go  quietl3'  home;  it's  all 
right ;  we  wiU  steer  the  matter  into  a 
safe  port ! " 

"  But  what  am  I  to  do,  then,  good 
Monsieur  Fraisier,  in  order  that  I  may 
n'have  an  annuity  and — ?" 

'- — No  remorse,"  said  Fraisier  emphat- 
ically, taking  the  words  out  of  Dame 
Cibot's  mouth.  "Why,  it  is  precisely 
for  that  purpose  that  professional  men 
were  invented.  In  these  cases,  there's 
nothing  to  be  gained  unless  you  keep 
within  the  limits  of  the  law.  You  don't 
know  the  law  ;    /  do.     Under  my  guid- 


140 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


ance  you  will  have  legality  on  your  side  ; 
you  will  hold  j-our  own  unmolested,  so  far 
as  mankind  are  concerned  ;  for  as  to  your 
conscience,  that  is  your  own  lookout." 

"Well,  say  on,"  replied  Dame  Cibot, 
whom  this  language  had  rendered  not 
only  inquisitive  but  cheerful. 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  say  ;  I  have 
not  studied  the  possibilities  of  the  case ; 
I  have  confined  my  attention  to  its  diffi- 
culties. Your  first  care,  look  you,  must 
be  to  get  the  will  made,  and  in  §o  doing 
you  will  not  be  on  the  wrong  track  ;  but 
before  all,  let  us  know  in  whose  favor 
Pons  will  dispose  of  his  fortune,  for  if 
it  should  turn  out  that  j'ou  are  his 
heiress — " 

"No,  no,  he  doesn't  love  me  !  Ah  !  if 
I  had  only  known  the  value  of  his  baubles, 
and  what  he  told  me  n'about  his  love 
affairs,  I  should  be  quite  easy  in  my 
mind  to-day — " 

"Well,"  said  Fraisier,  "pursue  your 
course,  all  the  same.  D^nng  folks  take 
strange  fancies  into  their  heads,  my  dear 
Madame  Cibot ;  they  cheat  many  an  ex- 
pectation. Let  him  make  his  will,  and 
we'll  see  what  is  to  be  done  afterward. 
But,  first  of  all,  we  must  get  the  objects 
composing  the  inheritance  valued.  So,  do 
you  introduce  me  to  the  Jew  and  this 
Remonencq;  they  will  be  extremelj'  ser- 
viceable to  us.  Repose  every  confidence 
in  me,  I  am  entirely  yours.  I  am  the 
friend  of  my  client,  ay,  up  to  the  very 
hilt,  when  that  client  is  friendly  to  me. 
I  am  eitlier  friend  or  foe  ;  that's  my  char- 
acter." 

"  Very  well,  I  shall  place  myself  quite 
in  3' our  hands,"  said  Dame  Cibot;  "and 
as  to  your  fees,  Monsieur  Poulain  will — •" 

"Oh,  don't  mention  them,"  said  Frai- 
sier. * '  Take  care  to  keep  Poulain  in  at- 
tendance on  the  patient ;  the  doctor  is  one 
of  the  most  honest  and  one  of  the  most 
upright  men  I  know ;  and,  look  you,  we 
are  in  need  of  a  man  there  whom  we  can 
rely  on.  Poulain  is  a  better  man  than  I ; 
I  have  grown  wicked." 

"You  look  like  it,"  said  Dame  Cibot ; 
"  but  for  my  part,  J  would  trust  j-ou — " 

"And  you  would  do  rightly'  !  "  replied 
Fraisier ;  "  come  and  see  me  whenever 


anything  turns  up,  and  keep  your  course; 
3'ou  are  a  clever  woman,  and  all  will  go 
well." 

"  Good-by,  dear  Monsieur  Fraisier;  and 
wishing  3'ou  good  health.  Your  servant.'' 

Fraisier  escorted  his  client  to  the  door 
of  his  apartments.  There,  he  did  as  the 
doctor  had  done  on  the  preceding  even- 
ing ;  he  clinched  the  matter  in  a  parting 
word  to  the  portress. 

"If  you  could  manage  to  get  Monsieur 
Pons  to  ask  for  my  ad\'ice,  that  would 
be  a  great  step  in  advance." 

"  I'll  try,"  replied  Dame  Cibot. 

"Mj'  J0II3'  dame,"  replied  Fraisier, 
leading  the  portress  back  into  his  study, 
"  I  am  well  acquainted  with  Monsieur 
Trognon,  the  notary' ;  he  is  the  notary  of 
the  district  ;  if  Monsieur  Pons  has  no 
notary,  mention  Monsieur  Trognon ;  in- 
sure his  being  selected." 

"  I  take  you,"  replied  Dame  Cibot. 

As  she  withdrew,  she  overheard  the 
rustling  of  a  dress,  and  the  sound  of 
heavy  footsteps,  that  would  gladl^^  have 
rendered  themselves  light.  When  she 
found  herself  alone  in  the  street  once 
more  and  had  walked  a  certain  distance, 
she  regained  her  liberty  of  thought.  Al- 
thougli  she  could  not  entirelj'  shake  off 
the  influence  of  this  conference,  and  al- 
though she  still  stood  in  great  awe  of  the 
scaffold,  the  law,  and  the  judges,  she 
came  to  a  \evy  natural  determination — a 
determination  the  effect  of  which  would 
be  to  place  her  in  a  position  of  tacit  an- 
tagonism to  her  formidable  adviser. 

"What  need  is  there  for  me  to  take 
any  one  into  partnership?"  said  she  to 
herself.  "  Let  me  feather  my  own  nest 
first ;  and  when  I  have  done  that  I  will 
accept  whatever  they  offer  me  for  playing 
tlieir  game." 

This  reflection  was  (as  we  shall  see) 
destined  to  hasten  the  end  of  the  unfort- 
unate musician. 


XX. 


DAME   CIBOT  AT  THE  THEATER. 

"  Well  !  my  dear  Monsieur  Schmucke," 
said  the   portress,   as    she    entered    the 


COUSIN    PONS. 


141 


rooms  of  her  two  gentlemen  ;  '•'  and  how 
is  our  dear  darling  of  a  .patient  getting 
on?" 

"Nod  well,"  replied  the  German; 
"  Bons's  mind  has  peen  wandering  all 
night  long." 

"  What  has  he  been  a-saying,  then  ?  " 

"Mere  nonzenze  !  Dat  he  wizhed  me 
to  have  all  his  fortune,  on  condition  dat 
I  would  zell  noding.  And  den  he  cried. 
Boor  man  !  it  made  me  feel  quide  un- 
habby  !  " 

"  Oh,  that  will  go  off  !  my  dear  duckie  !" 
^  replied  the  portress.  "  I've  kept  you 
a-waiting  for  your  breakfast,  seeing  as 
how  it's  past  nine  o'clock ;  but  you 
mustn't  scold  me ;  for  I've  had  a  heap 
of  matters  to  attend  to  on  your  account, 
d'ye  see.  We  were  out  of  every  blessed 
thing ;    so    I've    been    and    got  a  little 


monej' 


"  How  ?  "  inquired  the  pianist. 

"What  about  my  uncle,  eh  ?  " 

"  What  ungle  ?  "  said  Schmucke. 

"  Wliy,  the  scheme  !  " 

'•'  What  zgheme  ?  " 

"  Lord  bless  the  good  man  !  how  simple 
he  is,  to  be  sure.  No,  really,  'pon  my 
word,  you're  a  saint,  a  love,  a  n 'arch- 
bishop of  innocence,  a  man  as  is  fit  to  be 
stuffed  and  put  under  a  glass  case,  as  the 
old  actor  says.  What !  d'ye  mean  to  tell 
me  that  j^ou've  been  in  Paris  these  nine- 
and-twenty  years,  and  seen— let  me  see — 
why,  you  must  have  seen  the  Revolution 
of  July,  and  don't  know  what  the  vionde- 
piete  is  ? — the  office  where  they  lend  you 
monej'^  on  ^-our  rags  !  I've  taken  all  our 
silver  spoons  and  forks  there,  eight  of 
'era,  thread  pattern.  Bah  !  Cibot  can 
use  Algerian  metal  at  his  meals;  it's 
quite  the  fashion,  as  the  saj'ing  is.  And 
it's  not  worth  while  a-saj'ing  anything 
about  the  business  to  our  dear  cherub ; 
it  'ud  only  worrit  him  and  make  him  turn 
yellow ;  and  he's  quite  fretful  enough  as 
it  is.  Let's  save  him  first,  and  see  what's 
to  be  done  n'afterward.  We  must  take 
things  n'as  they  come — war  times,  war 
measures;   ain't  I  right  ?  " 

"  Goot  woman,  nople  heart  I"  exclaimed 
the  poor  musician,  as  he  took  Dame  Ci- 
bot's  hand  and  pressed  it  to  his  heart, 


while  the  expression  of  his  features  showed 
that  he  was  deeply  touched.  This  angel 
of  goodness  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  : 
they  were  full  of  tears. 

"Drop  that,  father  Schmucke.  You 
n'are  quite  absurd.  That's  a  pretty  thing 
to  make  a  fuss  about,  that  is  I  Why,  I'm 
a  n'old  daughter  of  the  people  I  am,  I 
carry  my  heart  in  my  hand.  I've  plenty 
of  tJiat,  d'ye  see,"  exclaimed  she,  clapping 
her  hand  to  her  bosom;  "just  like  you 
two  gentlemen,  which  you're  hearts  of 
gold." 

"Fader  Schmucke,"  echoed  the  mu- 
sician ;  "  nay,  after  gauging  de  fer^'  deps 
of  zorrow  ant  weebing  tears  of  bloot,  to 
mount  into  de  heavens,  it  is  too  moche  for 
me  !     I  shall  not  surfife  Bons — " 

"  In  faith,  I  verily  believe  you  ;  you're 
a-killing  of  yourself.  Now  listen  to  me, 
my  duckie." 

"  Duckie  !  "  repeated  Schmucke. 

"  Well  then,  my  dear  little  fellow  !  " 

"  Tear  little  velloio  !  " 

"My  pippin  then,  if  you  like  it  better." 

"  It  is  not  de  leazt  bit  blainer." 

"  Never  mind  ;  only  let  me  take  care  of 
you  and  be  your  guide ;  or  else,  if  you  go 
on  as  j'ou're  going  on  now,  I  shall  have 
two  patients  on  my  hands  instead  of  one. 
In  my  poor  opinion,  we  ought  to  do  what 
is  to  be  done  here,  turn  and  turn  about. 
You  can't  go  on  a-giving  lessons  in  town  : 
it  wears  you  n'out,  and  makes  \-ou  fit  for 
nothing  here,  where  we  shall  have  to  sit 
up  all  night,  seeing  as  how  Monsieur 
Pons  is  a-getting  worse  and  worse.  To- 
day I'll  step  round  to  all  j'our  customers 
and  tell  'em  as  you're  ill,  eh  ?  Then  you 
can  spend  the  night  at  the  bedside  of  our 
poor  lamb,  and  .you  can  get  your  rest  in 
the  morning,  from  five  o'clock  till,  say. 
two  in  the  afternoon.  J'll  do  the  most 
tiring  part  of  the  work — the  day  duty ; 
seeing  as  I  must  get  your  breakfast  and 
dinner,  look  after  the  sick  man,  get  him 
out  of  bed,  change  his  linen,  and  give  him 
his  medicine.  For  really  I  couldn't  hold 
out  ten  days  longer  as  I'm  a-going  on  now; 
and  we've  been  worrited  to  death  for  the 
last  month  over  him.  And  what  on  earth 
would  become  of  you  if  I  was  to  fall  ill  ? 
And  you,  too,  there,  why  it's  enough  to 


142 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


frigrhten  anj-body  to  see  how  j'ou  look, 
along-  o'  sittiug  up  with  Monsieur  Pons 
just  one  night — " 

So  saying,  she  led  Schmucko  to  the 
looking'-irlass,  and  Schmucke  found  that 
he  was  indeed  mucli  altered. 

"  Well  then,  if  you  agrees  to  what  I 
say,  I'll  go  and  get  your  breakfast  ready 
in  a  jilTy.  Then  you  can  continue  to  look 
after  your  patient  till  two  o'clock.  But 
In  the  meantime,  give  me  n'a  list  of  your 
customers  and  I'll  very  soon  square  mat- 
ters so  as  3'ou'U  have  a  fortnight's  libert3'. 
When  I  come  back,  j'ou  can  go  to  bed  and 
rest  yourself  till  the  evening." 

This  suggestion  was  so  full  of  wisdom 
that  Schmucke  forthwith  gave  in  his  ad- 
hesion to  it. 

"Not  a  word  to  Monsieur  Pons;  for 
you  know  as  he'd  give  himself  up  for  lost 
if  we  told  him  as  how  that  he  must  knock 
off  going  to  the  theater  and  giving  lessons 
for  a  time.  The  poor  man  would  take  it 
into  his  head  as  he'd  never  get  his  pupils 
back  again — and  a  pack  o'  nonsense — and 
Monsieur  Poulain  says  as  we  sha'n't  save 
our  Benjamin  unless  we  keeps  him  as  quiet 
as  a  mouse." 

"Well,  well,  do  you  get  de  breakfast 
while  I  go  ant  brebare  de  list  and  giff  you 
de  Addresses.  You  are  quite  right ;  I 
zhould  suggumb." 

An  hour  after  this  conversation  took 
place,  Madame  Cibot,  tricked  out  in  all 
her  finery,  set  off  in  a  milord,  much  to 
Remonencq's  amazement.  She  reckoned 
that  she  would  worthily'  impersonate  the 
confidential  housekeeper  of  the  Pair  of 
Nut-Crackers  in  all  the  boarding-schools 
and  other  establishments  wherein  the 
young  lady  pupils  of  the  two  musicians 
were  to  be  found.  It  is  unnecessarj' 
to  reproduce  the  multifarious  gossip  to 
which  Dame  Cibot  treated  the  school- 
mistresses and  private  families  that  she 
visited.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  resem- 
bled the  variations  of  a  musical  theme. 
We  will  confine  ourselves  to  the  rehearsal 
of  the  scene  which  occurred  in  the  mana- 
gerial sanctum  of  the  Illustrious  Gaudis- 
sard,  into  which  the  portress  succeeded 
in  penetrating,  though  not  without  en- 
countering the  most  stupendous  obsta- 


cles ;  for,  at  Paris,  managers  of  theaters 
are  less  easy  of  access  than  ministers  and 
kings ;  nor  is  it  difficult  to  divine  the 
reason  why  they  raise  such  formidable 
barriers  between  themselves  and  the 
common  herd  of  mortals :  whereas  a 
king  has  to  protect  himself  only  against 
ambition,  the  theatrical  manager  has  to 
shield  himself  from  the  aggressive  vanity 
of  the  actor  and  the  author  ! 

Tlie  intimacy  which  was  very  soon 
struck  up  between  the  door-keeper  of  the 
tlieater  and  Dame  Cibot  enabled  her, 
however,  to  clear  every  gulf.  Porters,  ^ 
like  all  folks  who  have  a  common  calling, 
understand  one  another  perfectly.  Every 
condition  in  life  has  its  shibboleths  even 
as  it  has  its  terms  of  obloquy  and  badges 
of  disgrace. 

"Ah!  madame,"  quoth  Dame  Cibot, 
"  you  are  portress  to  the  theater ;  I  am 
only  the  humble  portress  of  a  house  in 
the  Rue  de  Normandie,  in  which  your 
conductor  Monsieur  Pons  lodges.  Ah  ! 
how  happy  I  should  be  n'if  I  were  in  your 
shoes ;  to  see  the  actors  and  the  ladies  of 
the  ballet  and  the  n'authors  a-passing  in 
and  out !  That  is,  as  the  old  actor  said, 
the  field-marshal's  baton  of  our  calling." 

"  And  how  is  w^orthy  Monsieur  Pons 
getting  on  ?  "  inquired  the  portress. 

"Why,  he  isn't  getting  on  at  all;  ifs 
now  two  months  since  he  was  out  of  bed, 
and  he'll  leave  the  house  feet  foremost, 
sure  enough." 

"  It  will  be  a  great  loss — " 

"Yes,  he's  sent  me  here  to  explain  his 
position  to  your  manager;  try  \o  let  me 
get  speech  of  him,  my  darling." 

"A  lady  from  Monsieur  Pons  to  see 
you  !  "  Thus  did  the  page  who  attended 
the  manager's  x^rivate  room  announce 
Madame  Cibot,  who  was  recommended 
to  him  by  the  portress.  Gaudissard  had 
just  arrived  at  the  theater  to  be  present 
at  a  rehearsal .  As  chance  would  have  it, 
no  one  wanted  to  speak  with  him,  and 
not  only  the  authors  of  the  piece,  but  the 
actors  and  actresses,  were  late.  He  was 
delighted  to  have  news  of  his  conductor, 
and,  with  a  Napoleonic  gesture,  indicated 
to  the  page  that  Dame  Cibot  was  to  be 
admitted. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


143 


Tliis  quondam  commercial  traveler,  now 
at  tie  head  of  a  much-frequented  theater, 
was  cheating  his  associates  in  the  under- 
taking. He  regarded  them  very  much  in 
the  light  in  which  a  man  regards  his  law- 
ful wife.  The  development  of  his  financial 
talent  had  reacted  on  his  person.  Gau- 
dissard,  now  grown  stout  and  sturdy,  and 
displacing  on  his  cheeks  the  heightened 
color  produced  by  good  living  and  pros- 
perity, had  been  palpably  metamorphosed 
into  a  Mondor.  "We  are  becoming  a 
regular  Beaujon  !  "  he  would  say,  endeav- 
oring to  forestall  ridicule  by  being  the 
first  to  laugh  at  himself — "  Oh  !  you  are 
only  Turcaret,  as  yet,"  replied  Bixiou, 
who  often  acted  as  Gaudissard's  deputy, 
in  relation  to  the  first  lady  of  the  ballet — 
the  celebrated  Heloise  Brisetout.  In  short, 
the  ex-lLLUSTRious  Gaudissakd  worked 
the  theater  exclusivelj',  and  without  the 
slightest  compunction,  in  his  own  inter- 
ests. He  had  started  by  collaborating  in 
the  production  of  sundry  ballets,  vaude- 
villes and  dramatic  pieces,  and  liad  bought 
up  the  interests  of  his  coadjutors  for  a 
trifling  sum,  by  taking  advantage  of  those 
necessities  which  often  hold  the  author  in 
their  relentless  grip.  Tacked  on  to  dramas 
which  drew,  these  pieces  and  vaudevilles 
brought  a  few  gold  coins  into  Gaudissard's 
pocket  every  day ;  then  he  contrived,  by 
means  of  an  agent,  to  make  a  profit  on 
the  sale  of  tickets,  besides  appropriating 
as  manager's  perquisites  a  certain  num- 
ber of  tickets — enough  to  enable  him  to 
titlie  the  profits. 

These  three  species  of  managerial  im- 
posts, to  say  nothing  of  the  sale  of  boxes 
and  the  presents  that  Gaudissard  received 
from  fourth-rate  actresses  ambitious  of 
plaj-ing  some  insignificant  part — that  of 
a  page  or  a  queen  for  example— swelled 
his  third  share  of  the  profits  to  such  an 
extent  that  his  copartners  (who  were 
entitled  to  the  other  two-thir.ds)  took 
scarceh'  a  tenth  part  of  the  actual  returns 
of  the  theater.  Still  even  this  tenth  rep- 
resented a  profit  of  fifteen  per  cent 
on  the  capital  invested.  And  accord- 
ingly, Gaudissard,  backed  by  this  divi- 
dend of  fifteen  per  cent,  prated  about  his 
intelligence,  his  probity,  his  zeal  and  the 


good  fortune  of  his  partners.  When 
Count  Popinot,  with  a  show  of  interest  in 
the  matter,  asked  Monsieur  Matifat,  Gen- 
eral Gouraud,  son-in-law  to  Matifat,  and 
Crevel,  whether  they  were  satisfied  with 
Gaudissard,  Gouraud,  who  had  been  made 
a  peer  of  France,  replied  : 

"They  say  that  he  robs  us  ;  but  he's  so 
witty,  and  so  good  a  fellow  that  we  are 
quite  contented." 

"Then  it's  the  fable  of  La  Fontaine 
over  again,"  said  the  former  Minister 
with  a  smile. 

Gaudissard  employed  his  capital  in 
speculations  quite  unconnected  with  the 
theater.  He  had  formed  a  correct  opinion 
of  the  Graffs,  the  Schwabs,  and  the  Brun- 
ners,  and  took  shares  in  the  railway 
schemes  projected  by  their  firm.  He 
cloaked  his  astuteness  with  the  bluff  and 
devil-may-care  bearing  of  tlie  libertine 
and  voluptuary,  and  seemed  to  think  only 
of  enjoyment  and  the  adornment  of  his 
person ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  nothing 
escaped  hira  ;  and  he  turned  to  good  ac- 
count the  vast  business  experience  which 
he  had  acquired  as  a  bagman.  This  par- 
venu, who,  even  in  his  own  eyes,  was 
little  better  than  a  charlatan,  lived  in  a 
luxurious  suite  of  rooms,  which  had  been 
arranged  for  him  \)y  the  decorator  of  his 
theater,  and  in  which  he  gave  suppers  and 
other  festive  entertainments  to  the  celeb- 
rities of  the  day. 

Fond  of  show  and  hking  to  do  things 
handsomely,  he  affected  to  be  an  easy- 
going man,  and  seemed  all  the  less  for- 
midable, in  that  he  had  retained — to  use 
his  own  expression — the  plating  of  his 
original  vocation,  wliile  lining  thatp/a<- 
ing  with  the  slang  of  the  greenroom. 
Now  theatrical  artists  when  at  their  the- 
aters are  in  the  habit  of  calhng  a  spade  a 
spade  ;  Gaudissard,  accordingly  borrowed 
from  the  greenroom — which  has  a  wit  of 
its  own — enough  good  tilings  to  enable 
him,  with  the  help  of  a  rate  in  aid  from 
the  moidant  pleasantry  of  the  commercial 
room,  to  pass  for  a  superior  man.  At 
the  time  of  which  we  are  writing  he  was 
thinking  of  selhng  his  license,  and— to 
employ  his  own  phrase— pass /«f7  on  to 
other  avocations.    His  ambition  was  to 


144 


TUB    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


be  managing  director  of  some  railway, 
to  become  a  grave  and  reverend  member 
of  society,  to  procure  some  government 
appointment,  and  marry  Mademoiselle 
Minard,  the  daughter  of  one  of  the 
wealthiest  mayors  in  Paris.  He  hoped 
to  be  made  a  deputy  for  some  place  upon 
his  line,  and  to  make  his  way,  by  means 
of  Popinot's  inlluencc,  to  a  seat  at  the 
Council  of  State. 

"  Whom  have  I  the  honor  of  address- 
ing?" inquired  Gaudissard,  arresting, 
with  a  managerial  glance,  the  approach 
of  Madame  Cibot. 

"  I  am  Monsieur  Pons's  confidential 
hous(.'keeper,  monsieur,"  replied  Dame 
Cibot. 

"  Well,  and  how  is  the  good  old  fellow 
getting  on  ?  " 

"  Badly,  monsieur,  very  badly." 

"  Oh,  the  devil !  the  devil !  I'm  sorry 
for  that.  I'll  go  and  see  him ;  for  he's 
one  of  those  exceptional  men — " 

"  Oh  !  yes,  monsieur ;  a  regular  angel, 
to  be  sure.  I  still  sometimes  ask  myself 
how  such  a  man  could  be  in  a  theater — " 

"Why,  madame,  the  theater  is  a 
school  of  morality,"  said  Gaudissard. 
"Poor  Pon.s — ('Pon  my  word  of  honor, 
a  man  must  have  gone  to  seed  ere  he 
could  take  up  with  this  creature) —  He 
is  a  model  man  ;  and,  as  for  talent,  vf'hy — 
When  do  you  think  he  will  be  able  to  re- 
sume his  duties  ?  for  the  theater,  unfort- 
unately, resembles  the  diligences,  which, 
full  or  empty,  start  at  the  appointed 
times.  The  curtain  here  rises  at  six 
o'clock  every  evening,  and,  let  us  be  as 
sympathetic  as  we  may,  that  Avon't  pro- 
'duce  good  music.  Come,  tell  me  how  he 
is?" 

"  Alas  !  my  good  sir,"  said  Dame  Cibot 
taking  out  her  handkerchief  and  applying 
it  to  her  eyes,  "it  ig  very  shocking  to 
•have  to  say  it,  but  I  believe  as  we  shall 
have  the  misfortune  to  lose  him,  although 
■we  nurse  him  like  the  n 'apple  of  our  e^'e 
—Monsieur  Schraucke  and  me  ;  which  in- 
deed I  am  come  to  tell  you  as  you  must  not 
count  upon  that  good  Monsieur  Schmucke 
any  longer,  for  he  is  going  to  sit  up  every 
night.  One  can't  help  going  on  just  as  if 
there  was  some  hope,  and  a-trying  to  save 


the  dear  good  man  from  dying — but  the 
doctor  has  given  him  \i\\ — " 

"  And  what  is  he  dying  of?  " 

"  Of  grief,  of  the  jaundice,  of  the  liver 
complaint — ay,  and  all  that  mixed  up 
witli  a  heap  of  family  matters." 

"And  of  a  doctor,"  said  Gaudissard; 
"  he  ought  to  have  called  in  Monsieur 
Lebrun,  our  own  doctor;  tiiat  would 
have  cost  him  nothing — " 

"  Monsieur  Pons  has  a  doctor  as  is  a 
regular  God  —  but  what  can  a  doctor, 
however  clever  he  may'n  be,  do  against 
so  man^''  causes  ?  " 

"  I  was  greatly  in  need  of  the  worthy 
Pair  of  Nut-Crackei^s  for  the  music  of  my 
new  fairy  piece — " 

"  Is  it  anything  as  I  can  do  for  them  ?" 
asked  Diime  Cibot,  witli  an  air  that  would 
have  done  no  dishonor  to  Jocrisse. 

Gaudissard  burst  into  a  roar  of  laugh- 
ter. 

"Monsieur,  I  am  their  confidential 
housekeeper,  and  there  are  a  number  of 
things  as  these  gentlemen — " 

Hearing  Gaudissard 's  noisy  mirth,  a 
woman  who  was  outside  exclaimed  : 
"  Since  you  are  laughing,  one  may  come 
in,  old  man."  And  with  these  words,  the 
principal  lady  of  the  ballet  bounced  into 
the  room  and  flung  herself  on  to  the  only 
sofa  it  contained.  This  first  lady  was 
Heloisc  Brisetout,  who  was  wrapped  in 
one  of  those  magnificent  scarfs  which  are 
called  Algeriens. 

"What  is  it  makes  you  laugh?  Is 
it  this  lady  ?  What  sort  of  an  engage- 
ment is  she  on  the  lookout  for  ? "  said 
the  daitseuse,  survej'ing  Madame  Cibot 
with  one  of  those  glances  with  which  one 
artiste  is  wont  to  scan  another,  and  which 
ought  to  be  transferred  to  canvag. 

Heloise,  a  young  woman  who  had  a 
great  turn  for  literature,  was  well  known 
in  Bohemia,  and  was  on  intimate  terms 
with  several  great  artists,  and  was  en- 
dowed with  elegance,  subtilty,  and  grace 
— possessed  more  wit  than  is  usually  al- 
lotted to  principal  ladies  of  the  ballet. 
As  she  put  her  question  she  applied  a 
vinaigrette  to  her  nose. 

"  Let  me  tell  you,  madame,  as  all 
women  are  equal,  when  they  n'are  hand- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


145 


some ;  and  if  I  don't  sniff  tlio  plague  out 
of  a  smelliiig'-bottle,  and  if  I  don't  put 
powdered  brick-dust  on  my  cheeks — " 

"Considering-  what  Nature  has  already 
done  for  you  in  that  direction,  that  woukl 
he  an  audacious  pleonasm,  my  child  !  " 
said  Heloise,  smirking  at  the  manager. 

'•  I  am  an  honest  woman — " 

"So  much  the  worse  for  you,"  said 
Heloise.  "  'Tisn't  every  one  who  can 
get  hold  of  a  protector,  by  jingo ;  but  I 
have  one,  madame,  and  a  famous  one  he 
is,  too  !  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  your  '  so  much 
the  worse  ?  '  It's  all  verj'  fine  for  you  to 
wear  Algeriens  on  j'our  shoulders  and  to 
rig  yourself  out.  But  for  all  that,  you'll 
never  receive  so  many  declarations  of  love 
as  I've  had  in  my  time,  medeme  !  And 
you'll  never  be  a  match  for  the  pretty 
oyster-girl  at  the  Cadran-Bleu." 

Here  the  danseuse  rose  suddenly  from 
her  seat,  threw  herself  into  the  attitude 
of  a  soldier  porting  arms,  and  carried  the 
back  of  her  right  hand  to  her  forehead,  as 
a  private  soldier  does  when  he  salutes  his 
general. 

"What !  "  exclaimed  Gaudissard  ;  "  are 
you  the  pretty  oyster-girl  that  mj'  father 
used  to  talk  to  me  about  ?  " 

"  If  so,  madame  knows  neither  the 
cachucha  nor  the  polka,  then  ?  Madame 
must  be  over  fifty  !  "  said  Heloise,  assum- 
ing a  dramatic  pose,  and  declaiming  the 
line  : 

"  Cinna,  let  us  be  friends  1 " 

"  Come,  Heloise,  madame  is  not  in  trim, 
leave  her  alone." 

"Is  this  lady  the  Nouvelle  Heloise?" 
asked  the  portress  with  an  air  of  as- 
sumed simplicitj'  that  was  replete  with 
sarcasm. 

"  Not  bad  for  the  old  one !  "  cried 
Gaudissard. 

"  It's  as  old  as  the  hills,"  retorted  the 
danseuse.  "That  joke  has  gray  mus- 
taches ;  find  us  another,  old  girl,  or— take 
a  cigarette." 

"Excuse  me,  madame,"  said  Dame  Ci- 
bot ;  "  I  am  too  downhearted  to  keep  the 
game  alive  ;  my  two  gentlemen  are  very 
ill,  and  in  order  to  provide  them  with  food 


and  spare  them  worry,  I've  pawned  even 
my  husband's  clothes  this  morning;  see, 
here's  the  ticket — " 

"Oh,  now  the  affair  is  taking  a  dra- 
matic turn,"  cried  the  fair  Heloise. 
"What  is  it  all  about?" 

"Madame  breaks  in  upon  us  like — " 

"Like  a  first  lady  of  the  ballet,"  said 
Heloise.  "  You  see  I  am  prompting  you, 
medeme." 

"  Come,  come,  I  am  pressed  for  time," 
cried  Gaudissard.  "  We  have  had  enough 
nonsense  of  that  sort.  This  lady,  Heloise, 
is  the  confidential  housekeeper  of  our  poor 
conductor,  who  is  dying.  She  is  come  to 
tell  me  that  I  mustn't  count  upon  liis  re- 
appearing here ;  I  am  in  a  difncult3' — " 

"  Oh  !  poor  fellow  !  we  must  give  him 
a  benefit." 

"  That  would  be  liis  ruin  !  "  said  Gau- 
dissard. "Next  morning  he  might  find 
himself  twenty  pounds  in  debt  to  the  in- 
fu'maries,  which  won't  recognize  the  ex- 
istence in  Paris  of  any  other  sufferers  than 
those  they  themselves  relieve.  No,  look 
here,  vay  good  woman,  since  you  are  go- 
ing to  compete  for  the  Montyon  prize — " 

Here  Gaudissard  interrupted  himself  to 
ring  the  bell,  and  said  to  the  page  who 
forthwith  answered  the  summons  : 

"■  Tell  the  treasurer  to  send  me  a  forty- 
pound  note.  Take  a  seat,  madame,"  he 
added,  turning  to  Madame  Cibot. 

"All!  see  the  poor  woman  is  crying. 
That's  foolish,"  exclaimed  the  danseuse. 
"  Come  now,  mother,  cheer  up,  we'll  go 
and  see  him.  I  say,  you  Chinee,"  said 
she  to  the  manager,  as  she  drew  him 
aside  into  a  corner  of  the  room,  "you 
mean  to  give  me  the  chief  part  in  the 
ballet  of  '  Ariadne,'  don't  you  ?  You  are 
going  to  get  married,  and  you  know  how 
I  can  plague  you  !  " 

"  Heloise,  my  heart  is  like  a  frigate ;  it 
is  sheathed  with  copper." 

"  I  will  show  the  children  I  have  had 
\iy  you  !  I  will  borrow  some  on  purpose  1" 

"I  have  made  a  clean  breast  of  our 
attachment — " 

"  Be  a  good  fellow  and  give  Pons's  berth 
to  Garaugeot ;  the  poor  lad  has  talent, 
and  he  is  penniless.  I  promise  you  peace 
if  you  will." 


146 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"But  wait  till  Pons  is  dead;  the  old 
fellow  xn^v  recover  yet." 

"Oh!  as  for  that,  monsieur,  certainly 
not,"  said  Dame  Cibot.  "  Since  last 
Tiight,  when  his  mind  beg-an  to  wander, 
he's  been  delirious.  Unfortunately,  it 
will  soon  be  all  over." 

'•'At  all  events,  let  Garangeot  fill  the 
post  in  the  interim,"  said  Heloise.  "He 
has  the  whole  of  the  press  at  his  back." 

At  this  moment  in  came  the  treasurer 
with  two  twenty-pound  notes  in  his  hand. 

"  Give  them  to  madame,"  said  Gaudis- 
sard.  "  Farewell,  my  g-ood  woman,  take 
good  care  of  the  dear  fellow,  and  tell  him 
that  I  will  come  to  see  him  to-morrow  or 
the  daj'  after — as  soon  as  ever  I  can." 

"'  A  man  overboard,"  cried  Heloise. 

"  Ah  !  monsieur,  hearts  like  \' ours  are 
onh'-  to  be  found  at  theaters.  May  God 
bless  you  !  " 

"To what  account  am  I  to  carry  this  ?" 
inquired  the  treasurer. 

"  I  will  give  you  a  written  voucher ; 
carry  it  to  the  gratuity  account." 

Before  she  left  the  room.  Dame  Cibot 
bowed  ceremoniously  to  the  danseuse, 
and  overheard  Gaudissard  address  the  fol- 
lowing question  to  his  former  mistress  : 

"  Is  Garangeot  strong  enough,  think 
you,  to  knock  off  the  music  of  our  ballet, 
'The  Mohicans,'  for  me  in  twelve  days? 
If  he  gets  me  out  of  the  fix,  he  shall  be 
Pons's  successor !  " 

Thus  did  the  portress  (who  received  a 
larger  recompense,  for  having  wrought 
so  much  mischief,  than  she  would  have 
derived  from  the  doing  of  a  good  action) 
suppress,  at  one  fell  swoop,  all  the  re- 
sources of  the  two  friends,  and  deprive 
them  of  their  livelihood  in  case  of  Pons's 
restoration  to  health.  This  treachei'ous 
maneuver  was  certain  to  bring  about, 
within  a  few  days,  the  result  which  Dame 
Cibot  desired — namely,  the  sale  of  the 
pictures  coveted  b^-  Elie  Magus.  In  order 
to  realize  this  preliminarj'^  spoliation,  it 
was  needful  for  the  portress  to  lull  the 
formidable  ally  whom  she  had  called  in — 
the  advocate  Fraisier,  and  to  insure  the 
absolute  silence  of  Elie  Magus  and  Re- 
monencq.  As  to  the  latter,  he  had  gradu- 
ally succumbed  to  one  of  those  all-absorb- 


ing passions  to  which  the  uneducated  are 
liable,  when,  coming  to  Paris  from  the 
depths  of  their  provinces,  they  bring 
with  them  the  fixed  ideas  engendered  "by 
the  seclusion  of  country  life,  the  sordid 
ignoi-ance  of  primitive  natures,  and  the 
crude  desii-es  that  isolation  has  converted 
into  domineering  tyrants. 

The  masculine  beauty  of  Madame  Ci- 
bot, her  vivacity'  and  Billingsgate  wit, 
had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  broker, 
and  inspired  him  with  a  desire  to  take  her 
away  from  Cibot,  and  make  her  his  con- 
cubine— a  species  of  bigamy  much  more 
common  among  the  lower  orders  of  Paris 
than  is  generally  supposed.  But  avarice, 
acting  like  a  slip-knot,  gained  day  b^'  A&y 
a  firmer  hold  upon  the  heart,  and  ended 
by  disturbing  the  head  of  Remonencq. 
Thus,  by  calculating  the  commission  that 
was  to  be  .paid  to  Dame  Cibot  by  Elie 
Magus  and  himself  at  forty  thousand 
francs,  he  became  imbued  with  the  desire 
of  making  her  his  lawful  spouse,  and  so 
o'erleaped  the  boundary  that  separates 
the  simple  delict  from  crime.  In  the 
course  of  the  long  pipe-inspired  reveries 
in  which  he  indulged,  seated  on  his  door- 
step, he  was  led,  by  this  purely  commer- 
cial passion,  to  long  for  the  death  of  the 
little  tailor. 

If  the  little  tailor  died,  Remonencq 
saw,  in  perspective,  his  capital  wellnigh 
tripled  ;  and  then  the  thought  occurred 
to  him,  how  excellent  a  tradeswoman 
Dame  Cibot  would  make,  and  what  a 
fine  figure  she  would  cut  in  a  magnificent 
shop  upon  the  boulevard.  This  twofold 
covetousness  intoxicated  Remonencq.  He 
hired  an  imaginary  shop  upon  the  Boule- 
vard de  la  Madeleine,  and  filled  it  with 
the  choicest  objects  in  the  collection  of 
the  deceased  Pons.  After  having  slum- 
bered in  golden  sheets,  and  seen  miUions 
in  the  blue  spirals  of  his  pipe,  he  awoke 
to  And  himself  face  to  face  with  the  little 
tailor  who  was  sweeping  the  court,  the 
gatewaj',  and  the  pavement  in  front  of 
the  house,  while  the  Auvergnat  was  tak- 
ing .down  the  shutters  of  his  shop,  and 
arranging  the  goods  in  his  window ;  for 
since  Pons  had  been  laid  up,  Cibot  acted 
as  his  wife's  substitute  in  the  performance 


COUSIN    PONS. 


147 


of  those  functions  which  she  had  taken 
upon  herself.  This  olive-hued,  copper-col- 
ored, stumpy  little  tailor,  then,  the  Au- 
vergnat  considered  as  the  only  impedi- 
ment to  happiness,  and  he  put  to  himself 
the  question,  "  How  am  I  to  g-et  rid  of 
him?"  This  growing-  passion  rendered 
Dame  Cibot  extremely  proud  of  herself — 
for  she  was  verging-  upon  that  time  of  life 
when  women  begin  to  understand  that  it 
is  possible  for  them  to  g-row  old . 

One  fine  morning:,  then,  as  soon  as  Dame 
Cibot  was  up,  she  fixed  a  g-aze  of  pensive 
scrutiny  on  Remonencq  as  he  was  eng-ag-ed 
in  arrang-ing-  the  knickknacks  in  his  shop- 
front.  She  was  curious  to  learn  how  far 
his  passion  for  her  would  carry  him. 

"  Well !  "  said  the  Auverg-nat,  making 
up  to  her ;  "  are  things  going-  on  as  j'ou 
would  have  them  ?  " 

'•  It's  you  as  makes  me  uneasy,"  replied 
Dame  Cibot ;  "  you  are  getting  me  into  a 
scrape,"  she  added ;  "  the  neighbors  will 
come  to  notice  the  sheep's  eyes  as  you 
make  at  me." 

Thereupon  she  quitted  the  gate-way, 
and  plunged  into  the  innermost  recesses 
of  Remonencq's  shop. 

"  What  an  idea  !  "  .said  the  Auvergnat. 

"  Come  here  ;  I  want  to  speak  to  you," 
said  Dame  Cibot.  "  Monsieur  Pons's 
heirs  are  astir,  and  fhey  may  cause  us 
a  good  deal  of  bother.  God  only  knows 
what  would  happen  if  they  was  to  send  a 
lot  of  professional  men  to  poke  their  noses 
into  everything  like  so  many  Iiounds.  I 
can't  persuade  Monsieur  Schmucke  to  sell 
a  few  of  the  pictures  n'unless  you  love  me 
well  enough  to  keep  it  dark — oh,  so  dark 
that  you  wouldn't  split  even  if  your  head 
was  on  the  block — both  as  to  where  the 
pictures  come  from  and  who  it  was  as 
.sold  them  to  j'ou.  You  know  that  when 
once  Monsieur  Pons  is  dead  and  buried,  if 
they  find  fifty-three  pictures  instead  of 
sixty-seven,  no  one'll  know  how  many 
there  were !  Besides,  if  Monsieur  Pons 
sold  'cm  during  his  life'time  no  one  could 
say  a  word  about  it." 

"Yes,  it's  all  the  same  to  ?»e,"  replied 
Remonencq  ;  "  but  Monsieur  Elie  Magus 
will  require  receipts  in  regular  form." 

"  Oh,  you  shall  have  your  receipt  too, 


begging  your  parding  !  Do  you  suppose 
as  it  will  be  me  that'll  write  it  out  for 
you  ?  It  will  be  Monsieur  Schmucke.  But 
you  must  tell  your  Jew  to  be  as  mum  as 
you  are  yourself." 

"  We  will  bo  as  mute  as  fishes.  It's 
quite  in  the  way  of  our  trade.  Now,  for 
my  part,  I  can  read,  but  I  can't  write, 
and  that's  why  I  want  a  well-taught  and 
clever  woman  like  you  for  my  wife  I  /, 
who  have  never  thought  of  anything  be- 
yond getting  enough  to  keep  me  in  my 
old  age,  should  like  to  have  some  little 
Remonencqs  now.  Give  your  Cibot  the 
slip—" 

"Why,  here  comes  your  Jew,"  said  the 
portress;  "now  we  can  arrange  mat- 
ters." 

"  Well,  my  dear  lady,"  said  Elie  Magus, 
who  had  been  coming  every  third  daj'  to 
know  when  he  could  buy  the  pictures, 
"how  do  we  stand  now?" 

"'  Haven't  you  seen  any  one  wlio  has 
spoken  to  you  about  Monsieur  Pons  and 
his  gewgaws  ?  "  asked  Dame  Cibot. 

"I  have  had  a  letter  from  an  advocate," 
replied  Elie  Magus;  "  but,  as  he  seemed  to 
me  to  be  a  sharp  practitioner,  who  goes 
in  for  pettifogging,  and  I  distrust  such 
fellows,  I  did  not  answer  his  letter.  At 
the  end  of  three  days  he  came  to  see  me, 
and  left  a  card  ;  I  told  my  porter  that  I 
should  never  be  *  at  home '  when  that 
man  called." 

"Oh,  you  darling  Jew!"  said  Dame 
Cibot,  who  was  but  imperfectly  ac- 
quainted with  the  prudence  of  Elie 
Magus.  "  Well,  my  little  men,  in  a 
few  days'  time  Til  cajole  Monsieur 
Schmucke  into  selling  you  seven  or 
eight  pictures — ten  at  the  outside — but 
on  two  conditions  ;  and  the  first  is  ab- 
solute silence  !  It'll  be  Monsieur  Schmucke 
what  sent  for  you,  eh,  monsieur  ?  It'll  be 
Monsieur  Remonencq  as  suggested  to  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke  that  you  should  be  the 
buyer  ?  In  short,  whatever  happens,  I 
shall  have  had  naught  to  do  with  the 
matter.  You'll  give  forty-six  thousand 
francs  for  the  four  pictures,  eh  ?  " 

"So  be  it,"  sighed  the  Jew. 

"  Very  good,'"  said  the  portress.  "  The 
second  condition  is  that  you  hand  over 


148 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


fortj'-threc  thousand  francs  to  me,  and 
that  you  buy  the  pictui-es  of  Monsieur 
Schmucke  for  three  thousand  francs  only. 
Rcinonencq  hcre'U  buy  four  for  two  thou- 
sand francs,  and  will  hand  nie  over  the 
balance.  But  besides  that,  look  you,  dear 
Monsieur  Mag-us,  I've  been  the  means  of 
you  n'and  Remonencq  doing-  a  g-ood  stroke 
of  business  on  condition  that  we  all  three 
g-o  shares  in  the  profits.  I'll  n'introduce 
this  advocate  to  you  ;  or  he  will,  no  doubt, 
come  here  if  he's  asked.  You'll  value  all 
Monsieur's  Pons's  belonging's  at  the  prices 
as  you  can  afford  to  give  for  'em,  in  order 
that  this  Monsieur  Fraisier  may  be  sure 
of  the  value  of  the  propertj-.  Only,  mind 
you,  he  mustn't,  on  no  account,  come  here 
before  our  sale  takes  place." 

"That's  understood,"  said  the  Jew; 
"  but  it  will  take  some  time  to  examine 
the  things  and  put  a  price  upon  them." 

"You  will  have  half  a  day  for  that. 
Come,  that's  mj'  lookout.  Talk  the  mat- 
ter over  and  settle  it  between  you,  1113^ 
lads;  then  the  day  after  to-morrow  the 
thing  may  be  done.  I'm  a-going  to  see 
this  here  Fraisier  and  have  a  chat  with 
him ;  for  he  learns  all  that  goes  on  hei^e 
through  his  friend.  Dr.  Poulain,  and  it's 
no  light  task  to  keep  the  beggar  quiet." 

When  Dame  Cibot  was  midwaj^  between 
the  Rue  de  Normandie  and  the  Rue  de  la 
Perle  she  met  Fraisier,  who  was  making 
for  her  abode;  so  impatient  was  he  to 
gather — to  use  his  own  phrase — the  ele- 
ments of  the  affair. 

"Why !  I  was  on  my  waj'  to  your 
place,"  said  Dame  Cibot. 

Fraisier  complained  about  not  having 
been  received  by  Elie  Magus;  but  the 
spark  of  distrust,  which  was  beginning- 
to  gleam  in  the  eyes  of  the  man  of  law, 
•was  extinguished  by  the  portress  telling 
him  that  Magus  had  onlj'  ju.st  returned 
from  a  journej',  and  that  on  the  da^'  after 
to-moiTow,  at  latest,  she  would  bring  him 
and  Fraisier  together  in  Pons's  rooms,  so 
that  the  value  of  the  collection  might  be 
ascertained. 

"  Deal  with  me  franklj',"  said  Fraisier ; 
"it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  in- 
terests of  Monsieur  Pons's  heirs  will  be 
confided  to  my  care.    In    that  position 


I  shall  be   far  better  able  to  be  of  use 
to  you." 

These  words  were  uttered  in  so  dry  a 
tone  that  Dame  Cibot  trembled.  It  was 
obvious  that  this  hungry  limb  of  law 
would  maneuver,  on  his  part,  just  as  she 
was  maneuvering  on  hers  ;  so  she  resolved 
to  hasten  the  sale  of  the  pictures.  Dame 
Cibot  was  right  in  her  conjectures.  The 
advocate  and  the  doctor  had  gone  to  the 
expense  of  an  entirely  new  suit  for  Frai- 
sier, in  order  that  he  might  present  him- 
self in  suitable  attire  before  Madame 
Camusot  de  Marville.  The  time  I'equired 
for  the  making  of  the  clothes  was  the 
only  cause  which  retarded  this  interview 
— an  interview  that  would  decide  the  fate 
of  the  two  friends.  It  was  Fraisier's  in- 
tention, after  his  visit  to  Madame  Cibot 's, 
to  go  to  the  tailor's  and  try  on  his  coat, 
waistcoat,  and  trousers.  He  found  those 
garments  finished  and  awaiting  him ; 
went  home,  donned  a  new  wig,  and,  at 
about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  started, 
in  a  hir.ed  cabriolet,  for  the  Rue  de  Hano- 
vre,  where  he  hoped  to  obtain  an  audi- 
ence from  Madame  Camusot.  Fraisier  in 
a  white  cravat,  yellow  gloves,  and  a 
new  wig,  Fraisier  scented  with  Portugal 
water,  resembled  those  poisons  which  are 
placed  in  cut-glass  vials  and  covered  with 
white  kid  ;  they  are  daintily  labeled  ;  the 
very  string  that  binds  the  stopper  is 
natty ;  but  for  these  very  reasons  they 
appear  all  the  more  dangerous.  Frai' 
sier's  trenchant  aspect,  his  pimply  face, 
his  cutaneous  affection,  green  eyes,  and 
the  odor  of  evil  that  hung  about  him  wei-e 
as  conspicuous  as  clouds  against  an  azure 
sky.  When  he  was  in  his  study,  as  he 
had  appeared  to  Dame  Cibot,  he  was  the 
common  knife  used  by  the  assassin  to 
perpetrate  his  crime  ;  but  at  the  door  of 
Madame  Camusot  he  resembled  the  ele- 
gant dagger  that  a  young  lady  carries  in 
her  little  dunkerque. 


XXI. 

FEAISIEE   IN   BLOSSOM. 

A  GREAT  change  had   occurred  in   the 
Rue  de    Hanovre.      Viscount    and    Vis- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


149 


countess  Popinot  —  the  ex-minister  and 
his  wife  —  luid  been  unwilling  that  the 
President  and  Madame  Camusot  should 
quit  the  house  which  they  had  settled 
on  their  daughter  and  go  into  lodgings. 
The  president  and  his  wife,  therefore, 
installed  themselves  upon  the  second- 
floor,  which  was  left  vacant  bj'  the  de- 
parture of  the  old  lady — its  former  tenant 
— who  wished  to  pass  the  closing  years  of 
her  existence  in  the  country.  Thus  Ma- 
dame Camusot — who  retained  in  her  ser- 
vice Madeleine  Vinet,  the  man-servant, 
and  the  cook,  had  gone  back  to  the  penury 
from  which  she  had  started  —  a  penury 
that  was  alleviated  by  the  fact  that  she 
inhabited,  rent  free,  a  suite  of  rooms  that 
would  liave  cost  four  thousand  francs  a 
year,  and  by  her  husband's  salary  of  ten 
thousand  francs.  This  aurea  mediocritas 
was,  in  itself,  by  no  means  satisfactory 
to  Madame  de  Marville,  who  would  have 
had  her  fortune  in  keeping  with  her 
ambition ;  but  this  was  not  her  only 
grievance ;  the  cession  of  all  the  family 
property  to  Cecile  involved  the  loss  of  the 
president's  eligibilit}-  to  the  chamber  of 
deputies.  Now,  Amelie  wanted  her  hus- 
band to  be  a  deputy'  —  for  she  did  not 
readily  abandon  her  projects — nor  did  slie 
even  yet  despair  of  securing  the  pres- 
ident's election  for  the  arrondissement 
in  which  Marville  is  situated. 

Accordingly^  for  the  last  two  months 
she  had  been  importuning  Monsieur  le 
Baron  Camusot — for  the  new  peer  of 
France  had  obtained  the  title  of  baron — 
to  advance  the  sum  of  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  out  of  her  husband's  expectant 
patrimony,  in  order,  as  she  said,  that  he 
might  buy  a  small  estate  inclosed  by  the 
estate  of  Marville,  and  producing  a  clear 
rental  of  about  two  thousand  francs.  She 
and  her  husband  would  then  have  a  home 
of  their  own  in  close  proximity  to  the  resi- 
dence of  their  children,  while  the  estate 
of  Marville  would  to  that  extent  be 
rounded  and  increased.  Madame  Camu- 
sot made  capital  with  her  father-in-law 
out  of  the  state  of  denudation  to  which 
she  had  been  reduced  by  her  endeavors  to 
secure  the  hand  of  Viscount  Popinot  for 
her  daughter.      She    asked  the  old  man 


whether  he  could  bear  to  see  the  path 
that  led  to  the  supreme  honors  of  the 
magistracy,  honors  which  would  in  future 
be  reserved  for  those  who  had  a  strong 
parliamentarj'  position,  to  remain  closed 
to  his  eldest  son  ;  and  pointed  out  to  him 
that  the  concession  she  implored  would 
enable  her  husband  to  take  up  such  a  po- 
sition, and  so  make  himself  formidable  to 
the  Ministry.  "  These  people,"  she  said, 
"give  nothing,  except  to  those  who  twist 
their  neckties  for  them  until  their  tongues 
hang  out.  They  are  an  ungrateful  set. 
What  do  they  not  owe  to  Camusot  ? 
Camusot,  by  forcing  on  the  issue  of  the 
ordonnances  of  July,  brought  about  the 
elevation  of  the  House  of  Orleans — " 

In  reply  to  all  this,  the  old  man  pleaded 
that  he  was  involved  in  railway  specula- 
tions bej-ond  his  means,  and  postponed 
this  act  of  liberality — the  necessity  of  which 
he  admitted— until  an  anticipated  rise 
in  the  value  of  his  railway  shares  should 
have  occurred.  This  quasi-promise,  which 
the  president's  wife  had  extorted  a  few 
days  previously  to  Fraisier's  visit,  had 
filled  her  with  despair.  It  was  doubtful 
whether  the  ex-proprietor  of  Marville 
would  be  in  time  for  the  re-election  of 
the  chamber;  for  it  was  necessary  that 
he  should  have  been  in  possession  of  his 
qualification  for  a  j'ear,  at  least,  before 
presenting  himself  to  the  electors. 

Fraisier  had  no  difficulty  in  obtaining 
access  to  Madeleine  Vinet.  These  two 
viperine  natures  recognized  each  other  as 
having  been  hatched  from  the  same  egg. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Fraisier,  in  hon- 
ej-ed  accents.  "  I  should  like  to  have  a 
moment's  audience  with  Madame  la  Pres- 
idente  in  regard  to  a  matter  in  which  she 
is  personally  interested,  and  which  alTects 
her  fortune.  Be  sure  you  tell  her  that  it 
is  a  question  of  a  succession.  I  have  not 
the  honor  of  being  known  to  Madame  la 
Presidente,  so  that  the  mention  of  my 
name  would  carry  no  weight  with  it.  It 
is  not  my  custom  to  leave  my  office,  but 
I  know  the  attentions  that  are  due  to  the 
wife  of  a  president,  and  have  therefore 
taken  the  trouble  to  come  here  in  person  ; 
and  that  the  more  because  the  affair  does 
not  admit  of  the  slightest  delay." 


150 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Put  in  this  form,  and  repeated  and  am- 
plified hy  tlie  lady's-maid,  the  application 
naturally  elicited  a  favorahlc  reply.  Now, 
this  was  a  critical  moment  for  Fraisier's 
twofold  ambition,  and  according-ly,  in 
spite  of  his  intrepidity  as  a  little  provincial 
solicitor  full  of  self-assertion,  asperity, 
and  keenness,  his  sensations  resembled 
those  of  the  commander  of  an  army  when 
engaging  in  a  battle  that  may  decide  a 
campaign.  As  Fraisier  passed  into  the 
little  drawing-room  in  which  Araelie  was 
waiting  for  him,  he  experienced  what  no 
sudoriGc,  however  potent,  had  hitherto 
been  able  to  produce  upon  his  refractor^' 
skin,  whose  pores  were  clogged  by  hideous 
maladies  —  he  felt  a  slight  perspiration 
upon  his  back  and  on  his  forehead,  and 
mentally  ejaculated : 

'•■  If  my  fortune  be  not  made,  my  body 
is  saved,  for  Poulain  assured  me  that  \x\y 
health  would  be  re-established  whenev(;r 
the  action  of  the  skin  should  be  restored. 
Madame,"  he  began,  so  soon  as  he  caught 
sight  of  Madame  Camusot,  who  presented 
herself  at  the  audience  in  demi-toilet,  then 
pausing,  he  bowed  to  the  lady  with  all  the 
deference  whereby  ministerial  officers  ac- 
knowledge the  superior  standing  of  those 
whom  they  accost. 

"Be  seated,  monsieur,"  said  Madame 
Camusot,  who  saw  at  a  glance  that  Frai- 
sier belonged  to  the  legal  world. 

"  Madame  la  Presidente,  if  I  have  taken 
the  liberty  of  addressing  mj-self  to  you  in 
a  matter  of  importance  which  concerns 
Monsieur  le  President,  it  is  because  I  am 
thoroughly  convinced  that,  occupying  the 
high  position  which  he  does.  Monsieur  de 
Marville  would  very  likely  leave  things  to 
take  their  natural  course,  and  thus  incur 
a  loss  of  from  seven  to  eight  hundred 
thousand  francs,  a  sum  which  ladies,  who 
in  mj'  humble  opinion  understand  private 
affairs  far  better  than  magistrates  do, 
will  not  despise — " 

"  You  said  something  about  a  succes- 
sion— "  interrupted  Madame  Camusot. 

Amelie,  who  was  dazzled  by  the  magni- 
tude of  the  sum,  and  wanted  to  conceal 
her  astonishment  and  delight,  followed 
the  example  of  those  impatient  readers 
who  skip  to  the  conclusion  of  a  romance. 


"Yes,  madame,  a  succession  that  was 
lost  to  you — ay,  utterly,  irretrievably'  lost 
— but  which  I  am  able,  or  shall  be  able, 
to  restore  to  you." 

"  Proceed,  monsieur,"  said  Madame  de 
Marville  coldly,  examming  Fraisier  from 
head  to  foot  and  scrutinizing  him  with  a 
sagacious  eye. 

"I  know  your  eminent  abilities,  ma- 
dame ;  I  come  from  Mantes.  Monsieur 
Leboeuf,  the  president  of  the  tribunal 
there — the  friend  of  Monsieur  de  Marville 
— can  give  him  some  information  as  to 
who  and  what  I  am — " 

At  these  words,  Madame  Camusot  drew 
herself  up  in  a  manner  so  cruelly  signifi- 
cant that  Fraisier  was  compelled  to  insert 
a  hurried  parenthesis  in  his  discourse. 

" — A  lady  so  distinguished  as  j'ourself, 
madame,  will  at  once  understand  why  I 
begin  by  talking  about  myself.  That  is 
the  shortest  way  of  coming  to  the  suc- 
cession." 

To  this  subtle  remark  Madame  Camu- 
sot replied  only  by  a  gesture.  Encour- 
aged by  this  gesture  to  tell  his  story, 
Fraisier  resumed : 

"  I  was  formerly  a  solicitor  at  Mantes, 
madame.  My  practice  was,  naturally,  all 
that  I  had  to  depend  upon,  for  I  bought 
the  practice  of  Monsieur  Levroux,  with 
whom  you  were  doubtless  acquainted — " 

Madame  Camusot  bowed. 

" — With  the  money  which  I  borrowed, 
and  ten  thousand  francs  of  my  own,  I 
quitted  Desroches — one  of  the  ablest  so- 
licitor's in  Paris — whose  chief  clerk  I  had 
been  for  six  years.  I  had  the  misfortune 
to  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  procurator- 
royal  of  Mantes,  Monsieur — " 

"Olivier  Vinet— " 

" — Son  of  the  procurator-general ;  yes, 
madame.  He  was  paying  his  addresses 
to  a  little  ladj'— " 

"  He  !  " 

'•' — Madame  Vatinelle — " 

"  Ah,  Madame  Vatinelle — she  was  very 
pretty  and  very — in  my  time — " 

" — She  had  a  penchant  for  your  humble 
servant :  inde  irce,"  pursued  Fraisier. 
"  I  was  energetic,  I  wanted  to  reimburse 
ray  friends  and  to  get  married  ;  I  wanted 
business ;  I  hunted  it  up ;  and  I  very  soon 


cousm  PONS. 


151 


managed  to  brew  more  business  for  my- 
self than  all  the  other  ministerial  officers 
at  Mantes  put  tog-ether.  Bah  !  the  result 
was  that  all  the  solicitors  and  notaries — 
ay,  and  even  the  bailiffs — of  Mantes,  en- 
tered into  a  league  against  me.  You  are 
well  aware,  madame,  that  in  our  execra- 
ble calling,  when  a  man's  ruin  is  desired, 
'tis  easily  accomplished.  I  was  caught 
acting  for  both  parties  in  a  certain  case. 
It  IS  just  a  trifle  irregular,  I  admit;  but 
at  Paris  the  thing  is  done  in  certain  cases; 
for  here  solicitors  play  into  each  other's 
hands.  They  don't  at  Mantes.  Monsioru 
Bouyonnet — to  whom  I  had  already'  done 
that  little  favor — was  imped  by  his  con- 
freres and  spurred  on  b^^  the  procurator- 
royal  to  betray  me — you  see  that  I  don't 
attempt  to  hide  anything  from  you.  In 
fact  it  was  a  general  tolle ;  I  was  a 
rogue ;  I  was  painted  blacker  than  Marat. 
I  was  compelled  to  sell  my  practice,  and  I 
lost  my  all.  I  am  now  in  Paris,  where  I 
have  tried  to  get  together  a  business  con- 
nection ;  but  my  health  is  so  bad  that  I 
can  scarcely  reckon  on  two  hours'  ease 
out  of  the  twenty- -four.  I  have  but  one 
ambition  now,  and  it  is  of  the  humblest 
character.  You,  madame,  will  perhaps 
some  daj^  be  the  wife  of  the  keeper  of  the 
seals,  or  of  a  chief  president ;  as  for  me, 
poor  sorrj^  creature  that  I  am,  mj  only 
desire  is  to  have  some  post  in  which  I  can 
tranquilly  pass  the  days  that  yet  remain 
to  me — some  cul-de-sac,  some  quiet  berth 
in  which  one  vegetates.  I  should  like  to 
be  a  juge  de  paix  at  Paris. 

"  'Tis  a  very  simple  matter  for  you  and 
Monsieur  le  President  to  obtain  my  nomi- 
nation to  that  post ;  for  you  must  cause 
the  keeper  of  the  seals  enough  annoyance 
to  render  him  willing  to  oblige  you.  That 
is  not  all,  madame,"  added  Fraisier,  with 
a  gesture,  seeing  that  Madame  Camusot 
was  on  the  point  of  speaking.  "  The 
doctor  who  attends  the  old  man,  whose 
fortune  Monsieur  le  President  should  in- 
herit, is  a  friend  of  mine — you  perceive 
that  we  are  coming  to  the  point —  Well, 
this  doctor,  whose  co-operation  is  indis- 
pensable to  us,  is  in  a  position  strictly 
analogous  to  mine — plenty  of  talent,  no 
opportunities !     'Tis    through    him    that 


I  came  to  know  how  deeply  j'our  inter- 
ests are  suffering ;  for  even  while  I  ad- 
dress you,  it  is  probable  that  all  is  at  an 
end — that  the  will  which  disinherits  Mon- 
sieur le  President  is  made.  Now,  this 
doctor  wants  to  be  appointed  chief  phy- 
sician to  some  hospital  or  to  some  public 
schools  ;  in  short,  you  will  understand,  he 
longs  for  a  position  in  Paris  precisely  and 
analogous  to  that  which  I  covet.  I  trust 
that  you  will  pardon  me  for  having 
touched  upon  these  two  delicate  topics ; 
but  in  this  business  there  must  not  be 
any  —  even  the  slightest  —  ambiguity. 
This  doctor,  moreover,  is  a  person  who 
is  held  in  high  esteem,  a  skillful  man — 
a  man  who  saved  the  life  of  Monsieur 
Pillerault,  the  great-uncle  of  your  son- 
in-law.  Monsieur  le  Vicomte  Popinot. 
Now  if  you  are  so  good  as  to  promise  me 
these  two  places — that  of  juge  de  paix 
for  mj'self,  and  the  medical  sinecure  for 
my  friend — I  undertake  to  secure  you 
this  succession  almost  intact  —  I  say 
almost  intact,  because  it  will  be  subject 
to  the_  charges  which  must  be  created  m 
favor  of  the  legatee  and  sundr3'  other 
persons  whose  concurrence  is  absolutely 
necessary.  You  will  not  be  called  upon 
to  fulfill  your  promises  until  /shall  have 
fulfilled  mine." 

Here  Madame  Camusot,  who  had  just 
folded  her  arms,  after  the  fashion  of  a 
person  who  is  forced  to  listen  to  a  lecture, 
unfolded  them,  looked  at  Fraisier,  and 
observed  : 

"Monsieur,  you  display  a  meritorious 
perspicuity  in  all  that  relates  to  j'ourself ; 
but  as  regards  me  and  my  affairs  I  must 
say,  your  obscurity  is  quite — " 

"Madame,"  replied  Fraisier,  "two 
words  will  suffice  to  explain  everj-thing. 
Monsieur  le  President  is  the  sole  and 
single  heir,  in  the  third  degree,  of  Mon- 
sieur Pons.  That  gentleman  is  very  ill 
and  is  on  the  point  of  making  his  will — if 
indeed  he  has  not  already  made  it — in 
favor  of  his  friend,  a  German  named 
Schmucke.  The  value  of  the  succession 
exceeds  seven  hundred  thousand  francs. 
Within  three  days  I  hope  to  have  the 
most  accurate  information  as  to  the 
amount  of — " 


152 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"If  this  be  so,"  remarked  Madame 
Camusot  in  an  aside— she  was  quite  as- 
tounded at  the  possibility  of  the  value  of 
the  estate  being'  so  large—"  if  this  be  so, 
I  committed  a  grand  mistake  in  quarrel- 
ing with  him  and  crushing  him." 

"  Not  so,  madame ;  for  but  for  that 
rupture  he  would  now  be  as  merr^-  as  a 
lark,  and  would  ouUive  you.  Monsieur  le 
President,  and  mj-self  into  the  bargain. 
Providence,"  added  he,  by  way  of  disguis- 
ing the  hideous  idea  to  which  he  had  just 
given  vent — "Providence  has  its  own 
mysterious  ways ;  let  us  not  attempt  to 
fathom  them !  As  for  us  professional 
men,  we  are  prone  to  take  a  plain,  matter- 
of-fact  view  of  things.  Now,  madame, 
you  will  see  that  Monsieur  de  Marville, 
holding  the  high  judicial  position  he  does, 
would  not  stir,  could  not  stir  in  this  mat- 
ter, things  being  as  they  are.  He  is  at 
daggers  drawn  with  his  cousin  ;  you  have 
shut  your  door  in  Pons's  face ;  you  have 
banished  him  from  society'.  You  had,  no 
doubt,  most  excellent  reasons  for  acting 
as  you  did ;  but  the  old  man  fa  lis,  ill,  he 
bequeaths  his  goods  and  chattels  to  his 
only  friend.  A  pi'esident  of  one  of  the 
Courts  Royal  of  Paris  cannot  raise  any 
objection  to  a  duly  executed  will  made 
under  such  circumstances. 

"Yet,  between  you  and  me,  madame, 
when  one  has  an  equitable  right  to  a  suc- 
cession of  seven  or  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand francs — it  may  be  a  million  for  aught 
I  know — and  one  is  the  sole  heir  desig- 
nated by  the  law,  it  is  disagreeable  in  the 
extreme  to  be  done  out  of  one's  own.  But 
then,  in  order  to  avert  this  catastroj^jhe, 
one  gets  mixed  up  in  all  sorts  of  unworthy 
intrigues — intrigues  that  are  extremely 
knotty  and  full  of  difficulties;  while  at 
the  same  time  it  is  so  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  have  dealings  with  the  dregs  of 
society,  servants,  underlings,  and  so  forth, 
and  to  come  into  such  close  contact  with 
them,  that  no  Parisian  solicitor  or  notary 
can  prosecute  such  an  undertaking.  It 
requires  a  briefless  advocate  like  me — an 
advocate  of  solid  and  sterling  capacitj', 
who  is  devoted  to  his  client,  and  whose 
position  is,  unfortunatelj',  such  as  to  place 
him  on  a  level  with  the  kind  of  persons  to 


whom  I  have  alluded.  My  business  lies 
wholly  with  the  small  shop-keepers,  ar- 
tisans, and  common  people  of  my  arron- 
dissement.  Yes,  madame ;  such  are  the 
straits  to  which  I  have  been  i-educed  by 
the  enmity  of  a  procurator-royal,  who  is 
at  the  present  moment  assistant  pro- 
curatoi'-royal  here  in  Paris.  He  never 
forgave  me  my  advantage  over  him.  I 
know  you,  madame  ;  I  know  the  solidity 
of  your  i:)atronage,  and  I  saw,  in  this  ser- 
vice to  be  rendei'ed  to  3'ou,  the  termination 
of  my  sufferings,  and  the  triumph  of  my 
friend.  Doctor  Poulain — " 

Fraisier  stopped ;  but  Madame  Camu- 
sot, absorbed  in  thought,  did  not  open  her 
lips.  It  was  a  moment  of  fearful  anguish 
to  Fraisier. 

Vinet,  one  of  the  orators  of  the  center, 
who  had  been  procurator-general  for  six- 
teen years,  and  had  been  mentioned  over 
and  over  again  as  likely  to  be  appointed 
to  the  chancellorship,  was  the  father  of 
Vinet,  the  former  procurator  of  Mantes, 
who  for  the  last  twelve  months  had  held 
the  post  of  assistant  procurator-royal  at 
Paris.  Now  Vinet,  the  father,  was  an  an- 
tagonist of  the  rancorous  Madame  Caniu- 
sot — for  the  haughty  procurator-general 
took  no  pains  whatever  to  conceal  his 
contempt  for  President  Camusot.  This, 
however,  was  a  circumstance  which  Frai- 
sier did  not  and  could  not  know. 

"  Have  you  nothing  to  reproach  your- 
self with  bej'ond  the  fact  of  having  acted 
for  both  parties  in  a  certain  case?"  in- 
quired Madame  Camusot,  looking  fixedly 
at  Fraisier. 

"Madame  le  Presidente  can  have  an 
interview  with  Monsieur  LebcBuf :  Mon- 
sieur Leboeuf  took  my  part." 

"Are  3'ou  sure  that  Monsieur  Leboeuf 
will  give  a  good  account  of  you  to  Mon- 
sieur de  Marville  and  Monsieur  le  Comte 
Popinot  ?  " 

"I  will  answer  for  that ;  especially  as 
Monsieur  Olivier  Vinet  is  no  longer  at 
Mantes ;  for  between  you  and  me  the 
woi'thy  Monsieur  Leboeuf  had  a  secret 
dread  of  that  little  magistrate.  More- 
over, with  your  permission,  Madame  la 
Presidente,  I  will  go  to  Mantes  and  see 
Monsieur  Leboeuf.    That  will  not  occasion 


COUSIN    PONS. 


153 


anj'  delay,  since  two  or  three  days  must 
elapse  before  I  can  learn  the  exact  value 
of  the  succession.  It  is  my  wish  and  it 
is  my  duty  to  conceal  from  Madame  la 
Presidente  all  the  secret  spring's  of  this 
affair ;  but  is  not  the  reward  which  I  ex- 
pect for  my  devotion  to  your  interests  a 
guarantee  for  my  success  ?  " 

'•'  Very  well,  then,  get  Monsieur  Lebceuf 
to  say  a  good  word  for  you,  and  if  the 
succession  be  so  considerable  as  you  rep- 
resent it — and  I  nmst  confess  I  have  vay 
doubts  upon  the  point — I  promise  you 
the  two  appointments — in  case  you  suc- 
ceed, be  it  always  understood — " 

"I  answer  for  our  success,  madame. 
Only  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  send  for 
^our  notary  and  solicitor  when  I  require 
their  aid  ;  to  furnish  me  with  a  letter  of  at- 
torney', enabling  me  to  act  in  the  name  of 
Monsieur  le  President ;  and  to  direct  those 
two  gentlemen  to  follow  my  instructions 
and  not  to  undertake  anj'thing  on  their 
own  account." 

"The  responsibility  rests  entirely  on 
your  shoulders,"  said  Madame  Camusot, 
solemnly  ;  "  j'ou  must  bo  plenipotentiary. 
But  is  Monsieur  Pons  ver^'  ill  ?"  she  in- 
quired with  a  smile. 

'•  Indeed,  madame,  he  might  recover, 
especially  since  he  is  attended  by  a  man 
so  conscientious  as  Doctor  Poulain ;  for 
vay  friend  is  a  perfectly  innocent  spy_,  act- 
ing under  my  directions  in  your  interests, 
madame  ;  he  is  quite  capable  of  saving 
the  old  musician.  But,  by  the  bedside  of 
the  patient  there  is  a  portress  who,  to 
gain  thirty  thousand  francs,  would  push 
him  into  his  grave — I  don't  mean  that 
she  would  actually  murder  him,  that  she 
would  give  him  arsenic  for  instance  ;  no, 
she  will  not  be  so  charitable  as  that ;  she 
will  do  worse ;  she  will  morally  assassi- 
nate hira  by  causing  him  a  tliousand  fits 
of  irritability  in  the  course  of  the  day.  In 
the  countrjr,  surrounded  b}'  silence  and 
tranquillity,  well  nursed  and  cared  for  hy 
attentive  friends,  the  poor  old  man  would 
pull  round  again ;  but,  plagued  as  he  is 
by  a  Madame  Everard,  who  in  her  youth 
was  one  of  the  thirty  pretty  oyster-girls 
whom  Paris  has  rendered  famous  —  a 
covetous,  garrulous,  coarse  creature,  who 


trios  to  torment  him  into  making  a  will 
under  which  she  would  come  in  for  a  good 

round  sum — the  sufferer  will  inevitably  be 
attacked  by  induration  of  the  liver — it  is 
possible  that  calculi  are  already  forming 
in  it — and  the  necessaiy  result  will  be  an 
operation  to  extract  them,  w'hich  the 
patient  will  not  survive.  The  doctor — 
a  noble  fellow — is  in  a  fearful  position. 
He  ought  to  get  this  womt^n  dismissed — " 

"But  this  MegaM-a  must  be  a  perfect 
monster,"  exclaimed  Madame  Camusot, 
assuming  her  melodious  falsetto. 

This  parallelism  between  t\m  t(?rrible  Ma- 
dame Camusot  and  himself  was  a  source  of 
silent  amusement  to  Fraisier ;  he  well  knew 
what  to  make  of  these  sweet,  factitious 
modulations  of  a  voice  that  was  naturally 
dissonant.  He  was  irresistiblj'  reminded 
of  a  certain  president,  the  hero  of  one  of 
Louis  the  Eleventh's  stories — a  story  that 
in  its  last  phrase  unmistakably  bears  that 
monarch's  imprimatur.  The  president  in 
question  was  blessed  with  a  wife  cut  out 
on  the  genuine  Xartippe  pattern  ;  but  not 
being  gifted  with  the  philosophic  tempera- 
ment of  Socrates,  he  caused  salt  to  be 
mingled  with  his  horses'  oats,  and  ordered 
that  no  water  should  be  given  to  them. 
When  his  wife  was  traveling  along  the 
banks  of  the  Seine  to  her  country  seat, 
the  horses  rushed  to  the  water  to  drink 
and  took  her  with  them ;  whereupon  the 
magistrate  returned  thanks  to  God  for 
having  so  naturally  relieved  him  of  his 
better  half.  At  the  present  moment  Ma- 
dame do  Marville  was  offering  thanks  to 
God  for  having  planted  by  Pons's  side  a 
woman  who  could  relieve  her  of  him  so 
honorably. 

"  I  would  not  care  even  for  a  million 
if  it  must  cost  me  the  slightest  loss  of 
honor.  Your  friend  should  enlighten 
Monsieur  Pons  and  get  this  portress 
sent  away." 

"  In  the  first  place,  madame.  Messieurs 
Schmucke  and  Pons  believe  this  woman 
to  be  an  angel,  and  would  dismiss  my 
friend  instead  of  her.  In  the  second 
place,  this  atrocious  oyster-woman  is 
the  doctor's  benefactress :  she  it  was 
who  introduced  him  to  Jlonsieur  Pille- 
rault.    Poulain  directs  the  woman  to  be 


154 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


as  gentle  as  possible  to  the  patient,  but 
his  very  recommendations  point  out  to 
the  creature  tlic  means  of  ag-g-ravating 
the  nuxlady." 

"What  does  your  friend  think  of  my 
cousin's  condition  ? "  inquired  Madame 
Camusot. 

The  precision  of  Fraisier's  answer  and 
the  perspicacity  which  he  displayed  in 
penetrating'  the  innermost  thoug'hts  of  a 
heart  that  was  as  avaricious  as  Dame 
Cibot'Sj  made. Madame  Camusot  quake. 

"In  six  weeks/'  said  Fraisier,  "the 
succession  will  fall  in."' 

Madame  Camusot  looked  down. 

"  Poor  man  !  "  said  she,  vainly  endeav- 
oring- to  assume  a  sympathetic  air. 

"  Has  Madame  la  Presidente  any  com- 
mands for  Monsieur  Leboeuf  ?  I  shall  at 
once  take  train  for  Mantes." 

"Yes;  just  wait  where  you  are  for  a 
minute,  I  will  write  and  ask  him  to  dine 
with  us  to-morrow ;  I  want  to  see  him, 
and  make  an  ari-ang-ement  with  him 
whereby  the  injustice  from  which  you 
have  suffered  may  be  redressed." 

When  Madame  Camusot  had  left  the 
room,  Fraisier,  who  saw  himself  already 
clothed  with  the  dig-nity  of  juge  de  paix, 
was  no  long-er  like  the  same  man ;  he 
seemed  to  have  grown  stout ;  he  inhaled 
deep  draughts  of  the  atmosphere  of  hap- 
piness and  the  favoring-  breezes  of  pros- 
perity. He  imbibed  from  the  hidden 
fountains  of  Will  fresh  and  potent  doses 
of  that  divine  essence ;  like  Remonencq, 
he  felt  that,  to  attain  his  ends,  he  would 
not  shrink  from  committing  a  crime,  pro- 
vided only  that  it  left  behind  it  no  evi- 
dence of  its  commission.  In  the  presence 
of  Madame  Camusot  he  had  displayed  a 
bold  front,  turning  conjecture  into  real- 
ity, and  making  random  assertions  with 
the  single  object  of  getting  her  to  intrust 
him  with  the  salvage  of  this  succession, 
and  securing  her  influence.  Representa- 
tive as  he  was  of  two  intense  miseries 
and  two  aspirations  equally  intense,  he 
spurned  with  a  disdainful  foot  his  squalid 
dwelling  in  the  Rue  de  la  Perle.  A  fee  of 
three  thousand  francs  from  Dame  Cibot, 
a,  fee  of  five  thousand  francs  from  the 
president  loomed  in  the  distance.     There 


was  enough  to  provide  him  with  a  decent 
abode  !  And,  to  crown  all,  he  would  be 
able  to  discharge  his  debt  of  obhgation 
to  Dr.  Poulain  ! 

Some  of  those  harsh  and  vindictive  char- 
acters Avboni  suffering  or  illness  has  ren- 
dered spiteful  are  capable  of  exhibiting 
with  equal  violence  sentiments  of  a  totally 
opposite  description.  Richelieu  was  as 
good  a  fi'iend  as  he  was  a  cruel  foe.  Even 
so  Fraisier's  gratitude  to  Poulain,  for 
the  aid  which  the  doctor  had  afforded  him, 
was  such  that  he  would  have  allowed  him- 
self to  be  hacked  to  pieces  to  do  Poulain  a 
good  turn. 

Whe'n  Madame  Camusot  returned  to  the 
room  with  a  letter  in  her  hand,  and  (un- 
observed by  Fraisier)  had  a  good  view  of 
him  as  he  sat  dreaming  of  a  life  of  happi- 
ness and  plenty,  she  thought  him  less  ugly 
than  he  had  appeared  to  be  at  the  first 
glance  ;  and  besides,  was  he  not  about  to 
render  her  a  service?  We  look  upon  o'ur 
own  instrument  in  a  light  very  different 
from  that  in  which  we  regard  the  instru- 
ment of  our  neighbor. 

"Monsieur  Fraisier,"  said  the  lady; 
"you  have  proved  to  me  that  you  are  a 
man  of  talent ;  I  believe  that  you  can  also 
be  candid." 

Fraisier  replied  to  this  appeal  with  a 
most  eloquent  gesture. 

"Well,  then,"  pursued  Madame  Camu- 
sot, "  I  call  upon  3'ou  to  give  me  a  candid 
answer  to  this  question  :  Will  your  meas- 
ures in  any  way  compromise  either  Mon- 
sieur de  Marville  or  myself  ?  " 

"  I  should  not  have  come  to  3'ou,  ma- 
dame,  if  I  should  some  day  be  compelled  to 
repi-oach  myself  with  having  thrown  any 
mud  on  you — were  the  spot  upon  yovw 
reputation  no  bigger  than  a  pin's  head — 
for  there  it  would  look  as  big  as  the  moon. 
You  appear  to  forget,  madame,  that  be- 
fore I  can  be  made  a  juge  de  paix  at 
Paris,  I  must  first  acquit  myself  to  j-our 
satisfaction.  I  have  received  one  lesson 
in  the  course  of  my  life.  It  was  far  too 
severe  to  allow  me  to  expose  myself  to 
the  chance  of  undergoing  another  such 
castigation.  Now  for  the  last  word,  ma- 
dame ;  all  my  proceedings,  in  so  far  as 
they  affect  you,   shall  be  submitted  to 


COUSIN    PONS. 


155 


you  for  youi'  approval  before  they  are 
taken." 

"  Very  good ;  here  is  the  letter  for 
Monsieur  Lebceuf.  I  now  await  informa- 
tion as  to  the  value  of  the  succession." 

"  That  is  the  very  kernel  of  the  mat- 
ter," said  Fraisier,  bowing'  to  Madame 
Camusot  with  all  the  gi-ace  that  was 
compatible  with  his  physiognomy. 

"  What  a  merciful  dispensation  of 
Providence  ! "  said  Madame  Camusot 
de  Marville  to  herself.  "  Ah !  I  shall 
be  rich  after  all !  Camusot  will  be  a 
deputy ;  for  if  we  get  Fraisier  to  can- 
vass for  us  in  the  arrondissement  of 
Bolbec,  he  will  secure  us  a  majority. 
What  an  ag-ent !  " 

"  What  a  merciful  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence ! "  said  Fraisier  to  himself  as  he 
descended  the  staircase ;  "  and  what  an 
artful  jade  is  this  Madame  Camusot ! 
She  is  just  the  very  woman  I  wanted  to 
find  !     And  now  to  business." 

And  awaj^  he  sped  to  Mantes,  there  to 
win  the  g-ood  graces  of  a  man  whom  he 
scarcety  knew.  But  Fraisier  was  count- 
ing on  Madame  Vatinelle — to  whom,  alas, 
he  could  trace  back  all  his  misfortunes — 
and  there  is  this  resemblance  between 
the  sorrows  of  love  and  the  protested 
bill  of  a  substantial  debtor ;  the  latter 
bears  interest,  and  the  former  inspire  it. 


XXII. 


A   CAT3TION  TO   OLD   BACHELORS. 

Thrke  days  afterward,  wliile  Schmucke 
was  asleep — for  Madame  Cibot  and  the 
old  musician  had  already  begun  to  share 
the  burden  of  nursing  and  sitting  up  with 
the  sufferer — Dame  Cibot  had  had  what 
she  called  a  bit  of  a  tiff  with  poor  Pons. 
It  may  be  useful  to  point  out  a  painful 
peculiarity^  of  hepatitis.  Persons  who 
are  attacked  more  or  less  severel3'  with 
this  disease  of  the  liver,  are  apt  to  be 
hasty  and  choleric ;  and  the  liver  is  mo- 
mentarily relieved  by  these  gusts  of  pas- 
sion, just  as  the  patient,  in  a  sudden 
access  of  fever,  is  conscious  of  being  ab- 


normally strong.  When  the  paroxysm 
is  over,  a  weakness — which  the  doctors 
term  collapsus — sets  in  ;  and  the  full  ex- 
tent of  the  injury  sustained  by  the  system 
then  becomes  apparent.  Thus  it  happens 
that  in  diseases  of  the  liver,  and  especially 
in  those  which  have  their  origin  in  pro- 
found mental  suffering,  the  patient's  fits 
of  irritation  arc  followed  by  exhaustion 
that  is  all  the  more  dangerous  on  account 
of  the  strict  diet  to  which  he  is  subjected. 

In  these  cases  all  the  humors  of  the 
body  are  agitated  by  a  kind  of  fever ;  for 
the  fever  is  not  in  the  blood  nor  in  the 
brain.  This  morbid  susceptibility  of  the 
whole  system  produces  a  feeling  of  depres- 
sion that  makes  the  sufferer  loathsome  to 
himself.  In  such  a  crisis  every  trifle  causes 
a  dangerous  irritation.  Now  Dame  Cibot, 
a  woman  of  the  people,  without  experience 
and  without  education,  did  not  believe — 
spite  of  the  admonitions  of  the  doctor — in 
these  tortures  inflicted  on  the  nervous 
system  by  the  humors  of  the  body.  Mon 
sieur  Poulain's  explanations  were,  in  her 
opinion,  mere  doctors'  crotchets.  Like 
all  ignorant  persons,  she  was  resolutely 
bent  on  making  tlie  patient  eat;  and  she 
would  have  secretly  fed  him  on  ham. 
omelets,  and  vanilla  chocolate,  but  for 
the  following  unqualified  declaration  from 
the  lips  of  Dr.  Poulain : 

"Give  Monsieur  Pons  but  a  single 
mouthful  of  food,  and  you  will  kill  him 
as  surely  as  if  you  fired  a  pistol  at  him." 

The  obstinacy  of  the  lower  classes  in 
this  respect  is  so  great  that  the  repug- 
nance of  the  ailing  poor  to  going  into  a 
hospital  arises  from  the  belief  that  per- 
sons are  starved  to  death  there.  The 
mortality  caused  by  the  secret  supplies  of 
eatables  conveyed  by  women  to  their  hus- 
bands has  been  found  so  great  that  hospi- 
tal physicians  have  been  compelled  to 
subject  to  tlie  strictest  search  all  those 
who  come  on  visiting  days  to  see  the 
patients.  Dame  Cibot,  with  a  view  to 
bringing  about  the  temporary  quarrel 
that  was  necessary  to  the  realization 
of  her  immediate  profits,  gave  her  ac- 
count of  her  visit  to  the  theater,  not 
omitting  her  tiff  with  ila  demoiselle 
Heloise,  the  first  ladv  of  the  ballet. 


156 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  But  what  did  you  go  there  for?  "  in- 
quii-ed  the  patient  for  the  third  time. 
He  found  it  impossible  to  stop  Madame 
Cibot  when  she  had  once  fairly  embarked 
upon  the  stream  of  her  eloquence. 

'•  And  then,  when  I  luid  given  her  a  bit 
of  my  mind,  Mademoiselle  Heloise,  who 
saw  what  I  was,  caved  in,  and  we  be- 
came the  best  frieuds  in  the  world.  Now, 
you  ask  me  what  I  went  there  for  ?  "  said 
Dame  Cibot,  repeating  Pons's  question. 

There  are  certain  babblers — and  these 
are  babblei-s  of  g-enius — who  glean  each 
interruption,  objection,  and  remark  in 
this  fashion,  and  store  them  up  as  prov- 
ender to  feed  llu'ir  talk;  as  if  it  were 
possible  that  its  fount  should  fail. 

"Why,  I  went  there  to  get  your  Mon- 
sieur Gaudissai'd  out  of  a  mess ;  he's  in 
want  of  some  music  for  a  ballet,  and  \o\x 
are  hardly  in  a  condition,  my  darling,  to 
scribble  away  and  do  what  is  required  of 
you.  So  I  hcaixl  as  how  a  Monsieur  Ga- 
rangeot  would  be  called  in  to  set  '  The 
Mohicans '  to  music — " 

"  Oarangeot  /  "  echoed  the  furious 
Pons.  "Oarangeot!  a  man  without  a 
particle  of  talent ;  I  wouldn't  have  him 
as  a  first  violin  !  He  has  plentj^  of  wit, 
and  writes  very  good  musical  notices ; 
but  as  for  composing  an  air,  I  defy  him 
to  do  it !  And  who  the  devil  put  it  into 
your  head  to  go  to  the  theater  ?  " 

'■What  an  obstinate  demon  it  is,  to  be 
sure  !  Look  here,  my  pussy,  don't  boil 
over  like  milk  porridge.  Could  you,  I 
n'ask,  write  music  in  the  state  you'i'e  in  ? 
Why,  you  can't  have  seen  yourself  in  the 
glass  ?  Would  3'ou  like  just  to  have  a 
peep  at  the  glass?  Wh^',  you're  nothing 
but  skin  and  bone — you're  as  weak  as  a 
sparrow — and  yet  you  fancy  as  you  can 
jot  down  your  notes — why,  you  couldn't 
even  tot  tip  my  bills — and,  by  the  way, 
that  reminds  me  that  I  must  send  up  the 
third  floor's  bill ;  he  owes  us  seventeen 
francs,  and  even  seventeen  francs  is  not 
to  be  sneezed  at ;  for,  when  we've  paid 
the  druggist  we  sha'n't  have  as  much  as 
twenty  francs  left.  Well,  I  was  bound  to 
tell  this  man,  who  seems  a,  thorough  good 
fellow  —  a  regular  Roger  Bontemps  as 
would  just  suit  me  to  a  T — {he'll  never 


have  the  liver  complaint,  he  won't)  ! — 
well,  I  was  bound,  as  I  was  a-saying,  to 
let  him  know  how  j'ou  was.  Bless  my 
heart  and  soul,  you  are  far  from  well,  I 
can  tell  you,  and  so  he  has  just  put  some 
one  in  your  place  for  a  little  while." 

"Put  some  one  in  my  place!"  ex- 
claimed Pons,  in  a  terrific  voice,  sitting 
up  in  bed. 

Sick  folks  in  general,  and  especially 
those  who  are  within  the  compass  of 
Death's  scythe,  cling  to  their  situations 
with  a  tenacity  equal  to  the  energy  dis- 
played by  beginners  in  endeavoring  to 
obtain  them.  Thus,  to  this  poor  mori- 
bund old  man,  his  supersession  seemed  a 
kind  of  preliminary  death. 

'•But,"  pursued  he,  "the  doctor  tells 
me  that  I  ani  going  on  as  well  as  possible! 
and  that  I  shall  soon  return  to  my  old 
life.  You  have  killed,  ruined,  assassi- 
nated  me  !  " 

"  Tut,  tut,  tut,  tut  !  there  you  go," 
exclaimed  Dame  Cibot.  "So,  I'm  your 
destroyer,  am  I  ?  These  are  the  pretty 
things  3'ou're  always  a-saying  about  me 
to  Monsieur  Schmucke  when  my  back's 
turned.  I  hear  what  you  say,  I  do  ! 
You're  a  monster  of  ungi'atitude  !  " 

"  But  you  don't  understand  that  if  I 
waste  even  a  fortnight  over  my  conva- 
lescence I  shall  be  told,  on  returning  to 
the  theater,  that  I  am  an  old  fogy,  a 
veteran  ;  that  my  day  has  gone  by,  that 
I  am  a  relic  of  the  Empire,  a  fossil,  a 
guy  !  "  cried  this  invalid  who  panted  for 
life.  "  Garangeot  will  have  been  making 
friends  from  the  box-offlce  up  to  the  very 
cradling  of  the  theater  !  He  has  lowered 
the  pitch  for  some  actress  without  a 
voice ;  he  has  licked  Monsieur  Gaudis- 
saud's  shoes  ;  he  has  got  his  friends  to 
praise  everybody  in  the  newspaper  cri- 
tiques ;  yes,  and  in  a  shop  like  that,  Ma- 
dame Cibot,  people  will  find  hair  upon  a 
billiard-ball !  What  devil  was  it  that  in- 
spired you  with  the  idea  of  going  to  the 
theater  ?  " 

"Why,  goodness  gracious  me  !  Haven't 
I  and  Monsieur  Sclimucke  been  talking  the 
matter  over  for  the  last  week  ?  What 
would  you  n'have,  I'd  like  to  know  ? 
You've  no  thought  for  any  one  but  your- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


157 


self.  You're  that  selfish  that  you'd  kill 
other  folks  to  cure  yourself !  Why,  there's 
that  poor  Monsieur  Schmucke  has  been 
a-vvearing'  his  very  life  out  for  the  last 
month ;  he's  worn  his  very  feet  off  his 
legs ;  he  can't  go  out  anywhere  now  to 
give  lessons  or  do  duty  at  the  theater ; 
why,  you  don't  notice  anything-  that  goes 
on  !  He  looks  after  you  at  night  as  I  do 
during  the  day-time.  Why,  if  I'd  gone 
on  a-setting  up  with  j'ou  at  uiglit,  as  I 
tried  to  do  at  first,  thinking,  as  I  did,  as 
there  was  scarce  anything  the  matter  with 
you,  I  should  now  have  to  lie  in  bed  the 
whole  blessed  day  long  !  And  who'd  look 
after  the  house  and  the  larder  then,  I 
should  like  to  know  ?  Pray,  what  on 
earth  would  you  have  ?  Illness  is  illness, 
and  there's  an  end  of  the  business !  " 

"  It's  impossible  for  Schmucke  to  have 
had  such  an  idea — " 

"  Now  I  suppose  you  want  to  make  out 
that  it  was  me  as  took  it  into  my  head  ? 
What  ?  D'ye  think  as  we're  made  of 
iron  ?  Why,  if  Monsieur  Schmucke  had 
carried  on  his  business  by  going  and 
giving-  seven  or  eight  blessed  lessons  and 
spending  the  evening-  at  the  theater  a-di- 
recting  of  that  there  orchestra  from  half- 
past  six  till  half-past  eleven,  he'd  have 
been  carried  off  in  ten  days.  Do  you  want 
the  worthy  man  to  die,  him  as  would  shed 
his  blood  for  you  ?  By  the  authors  of  my 
being,  there  never  was  such  a  patient  as 
you  !  What  have  you  done  with  your 
wits  ?  Have  you  taken  'em  to  the  Mont- 
de-Piete  and  i^ledged  'em  ?  Every  one 
here  does  their  utmost  for  you,  and  yet 
you're  discontented  !  Why,  you  must 
want  to  drive  us  stai'k,  staring  mad  ;  I'm 
quite  done  up  as  it  is  without  any  further 
trouble  !  " 

Dame  Cibot's  rhetoric  might  flow  un- 
checked; indignation  had  tied  poor  Pons's 
tongue.  He  turned  and  twisted  about 
in  his  bed,  and  feebl^^  articulated  a  few 
ejaculations.  In  point  of  fact  he  was 
dying. 

But  now  that  the  quarrel  had  reached 
this  pitch,  a  sudden  change  supervened, 
and  a  tender  scene  ensued.  The  nurse 
threw  herself  upon  the  patient,  and,  plac- 
ing her  hands  upon  his  head,  compelled 


him  to  lie  down,  and  drew  the  bedclothes 
over  him. 

"  How  on  earth  can  people  work  them- 
selves into  such  a  stage  ?  After  all,  my 
pussy,  it's  only  your  complaint.  It's  just 
as  worthy  Monsieur  Poulain  says.  Come 
now,  do  be  quiet.  Do  be  pleasant,  my 
good  little  fellow.  You're  the  idol  of 
every  one  as  comes  anywhere  near  you — 
why,  the  doctor  himself  comes  to  see  you 
twice  a  day !  What  would  he  say  if  he 
found  you  in  this  state  of  n'exciteraent  ? 
You  throw  me  quite  off  my  hinges  !  It 
ain't  right  of  you  to  do  so — indeed  it  ain't. 
When  one  has  Mother  Cibot  for  a  nurse 
one  ought  to  behave  decently  to  her — you 
shout  and  talk,  and  you  know  that  it" s 
forbidden.  Talking  n'irritates  you.  And 
whj'  lose  your  temper  ?  You're  n'alto- 
gether  in  the  wrong  —  you're  always 
a-flustering  me  !  Come  now,  let's  just 
argue  the  point  rationally  !  If  Monsieur 
Schmucke  and  I— who  love  you  n'as  I  love 
my  own  little  bowels — thought  that  we 
was  a-doing  the  cori-ect  thing  !  well,  my 
cherub,  that's  all  right,  ain't  it  ?  " 

"  It's  impossible  that  Schnmcke  can 
have  told  you  to  go  to  the  theater  with- 
out consulting  me." 

"Am  I  to  go  and  wake  the  poor  fellow 
who"s  sleeping  like  the  just,  and  call  him 
to  witness  ?" 

"  No  !  no  !  "  exclaimed  Pons.  "  If  my 
good  and  affectionate  Schmucke  came  to 
that  decision,  I  am,  perhaps,  worse  than 
I  thought  I  was."  Here  Pons  cast  a 
glance  of  intense  melancholy  at  the  ob- 
jects of  art  which  adorned  his  chamber, 
and  added : 

"  Then  I  suppose  I  nmst  bid  adieu  to  my 
dear  pictm-es,  to  all  those  tilings  which  I 
have  come  to  regard  as  friends.  Oh,  can 
it  be  true  ?  can  it  be  true  ?  " 

At  these  words  Dame  Cibot  —  that 
atrocious  actress — placed  her  handker- 
chief before  her  eyes.  This  mute  re- 
sponse plunged  the  sufferer  into  a  som- 
ber reverie.  Beaten  down  by  these  two 
blows— the  loss  of  his  berth  and  the  pros- 
pect of  death— planted  as  they  were  in 
such  sensitive  spots— his  social  position 
and  the  condition  of  his  health — he  sunk 
into   a  state  of    exhaustion  so    extreme 


158 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


that,  lacking'  strength  to  be  angry,  he 
lay  sad  and  still,  like  a  consumptive  man 
whose  final  pangs  are  over,  and  from 
whom  life  is  ebbing  placidly  awaA-. 

Seeing  that  her  victim  was  entirely  sub- 
dued. Dame  Cibot  said  to  him  :  "  Let  me 
tell  you,  in  Monsieur  Schmucke's  inter- 
ests, as  .you  would  do  well  to  send  for  the 
notary  of  the  district — Monsieur  Trognon, 
who  n'is  a  very  worthj'  man." 

"You  are  always  talking  to  me  about 
this  Trognon,"  said  the  sick  man. 

"  Oh  !  well,  it's  all  one  to  me — he  or 
n'any  one  else  —  for  anything  that  you 
will  leave  me  !  " 

The  portress  tossed  her  head  bj'  way  of 
showing  her  supreme  contempt  for  riches; 
and  silence  was  restored. 

At  this  moment  Schmucke,  who  had 
been  asleep  for  more  than  six  hours,  was 
awakened  by  a  sensation  of  hunger,  and, 
getting  out  of  bed,  came  into  Pons's  room 
and  gazed  at  him  for  some  moments  in 
silence ;  for  Madame  Cibot  had  placed 
her  finger  on  her  lips  and  whispered  : 
"Hush  !  "  She  then  left  her  seat,  and 
g'oing  close  up  to  the  German,  in  order 
that  she  might  breathe  her  words  into  his 
ear,  said  :  "  Thank  God  !  he's  a-going 
to  sleep  now ;  he's  as  vicious  as  a  red 
donkey  !  " 

"What  can  you  egspect ;  he  is  to  pe 
excused  on  de  score  of  his  illness — " 

"No;  on  the  contrary-,  I'm  extremely- 
patient,"  interposed  the  victim,  in  a  dole- 
ful voice  which  betrayed  terrible  exhaus- 
tion. "  But,  my  dear  Schmucke,  she  has 
positively  been  to  the  theater  to  get  me 
dismissed — " 

He  paused  for  lack  of  strength  to  con- 
tinue. Dame  Cibot  took  advantage  of 
the  pause  to  indicate  to  Schmucke  by 
means  of  a  gesture  the  state  of  a  man's 
head  when  his  wits  are  wandering,  and 
said  : 

"  Don't  contradict  him  ;  it  would  be  the 
death  of  him." 

"And  she  pretends,"  continued  Pons, 
looking  at  the  honest  German,  "  that  it 
was  you  who  sent  her  there." 

"Yez,"  replied  the  heroic  Schmucke, 
"it  was  nezezzary.  Dont  speag — allow 
uz  to  safe  you  !     It  is  folly  to  wear  your- 


zelf  out  wid  work  when  you  have  a  treaz- 
ure  ;  ged  well  again,  and  we  will  zell  some 
brig-a-brag,  and  we  will  end  our  lifes 
qiiiedly  in  zome  znug  corner,  with  this 
goot  Montame  Zipod  to  look  after  us — " 

"She  has  bewitched  you  !  "  said  Pons, 
in  lugubrious  accents;  then,  thinking 
that  Madame  Cibot  had  left  the  room 
since  he  had  lost  sight  of  her — she  had 
placed  herself  behind  the  bedstead  so 
that  she  might  make  signs  to  Schmucke 
without  being  seen  by  Pons — the  patient 
added  :  "  She  assassinates  me  !  " 

"  What  ?  "  exclaimed  Dame  Cibot,  with 
flaming  eyes,  and  arms  akimbo,  "  I  as- 
sassinate you,  do  I  ?  So  that's  the  re- 
ward I  get  for  being  as  faithful  to  j-ou  as 
a  poodle  dog  !  Good  God  Almighty  !  " 
And  bursting  into  tears,  she  sunk  into  an 
armchair  —  a  tragical  movement  which 
gave  Pons  a  fatal  turn.  "Well,"  said 
she,  rising  from  the  chair,  and  glaring  at 
the  two  friends  with  the  ej-e  of  an  enraged 
woman — eyes  that  seem  to  emit  at  once 
pistol-shots  and  poison — "well,  I'm  sick 
and  tired  of  slaving  mj-self  to  death  here 
without  giving  satisfaction.  You  shall 
hire  a  nurse  !  "  (At  these  words  the  two 
friends  looked  at  each  other  in  dismay.) 
"  Oh,  j'es,  it's  all  mighty  fine  for  j-ou  to 
look  at  each  other  like  a  couple  of  actors. 
I  mean  what  I  say.  I  goes  and  I  asks 
Doctor  Poulain  to  find  you  a  nurse  ;  and 
we'll  settle  our  accounts  together.  You'll 
repay  me  the  money  as  I've  spent  in  these 
here  rooms,  and  that  I'd  never  have  asked 
3'ou  for  again — me  as  went  to  Monsieur 
Pillerault  to  borrow  another  five  hundred 
francs  !  " 

"  It's  his  melatj^,"  said  Schmucke,  rush- 
ing- up  to  Madame  Cibot,  and  putting-  his 
arm  round  her  waist.     "Do  be  batient !  " 

"Oh,  as  for  you,  you're  an  angel;  I 
could  kiss  the  verj'  ground  you  tread 
upon,"  said  she.  "But  Monsieur  Pons 
never  liked  me;  he  n'always  hated  me. 
Besides,  he  may  think  as  I  wants  to  be 
remembered  in  his  will." 

"  Hush  !  you  are  going  de  way  to  kiU 
him,"  said  Schmucke. 

"  Good-by,  monsieur!  "  said  Dame  Ci- 
bot, going  up  to  Pons  and  darting  at  him 
a  withering-  glance.     "  For  aU  the  ill-will 


COUSIN    PONS. 


159 


I  bears  you,  may  you  get  well  again. 
When  you  can  be  kind  to  me  and  can 
believe  as  what  I  do  is  for  the  best,  I'll 
come  back  again.  Till  then  I  shall  just 
staj'  at  home.  You  were  my  child  ;  since 
when  have  3'ou  seen  children  turn  round 
upon  their  own  mothers  ?  No,  no.  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke,  I  won't  listen  to  a  sin- 
gle word.  I'll  bring  3-0U  your  dinner  and 
wait  upon  you  ;  but  you  must  get  a  nurse 
for  Monsieur  Pons ;  ask  Monsieur  Poulain 
to  find  you  one." 

And  she  flounced  out  of  the  room,  slam- 
ming the  doors  behind  her  with  so  much 
violence  that  the  frail  and  precious  works 
of  art  shook  again. 

The  sufferer  heard  the  clatter  of  por- 
celain— and  to  him,  in  his  torture,  the 
sound  was  what  the  coup  de  grdce  used 
to  be  to  those  who  were  broken  on  the 
wheel. 

An  hour  afterwaixl  Dame  Cibot,  instead 
of  coming  to  Pons's  bedside,  called  to 
Schmucke  through  the  bedroom-door  to 
teU  him  that  his  dinner  was  ready  for 
him  in  the  dining-room.  Thither  the 
poor  German  repaired  with  wan  face  and 
weeping  eyes. 

'•  My  boor  Bons  is  bezide  himzelf,"'  said 
he;  "for  he  makes  out  that  you  are  a 
flUain.  It's  his  disease,"  added  he,  in 
order  to  soothe  Dame  Cibot,  without  ac- 
cusing Pons. 

"  Oh !  I've  had  quite  enough  of  liis 
disease  !  Hear  what  I  have  to  say;  he's 
neither  father,  husband,  brothei",  nor 
child  of  mine  ;  and  he's  taken  a  dislike 
to  me:  well,  that's  cxuite  enough  for  me! 
As  for  you,  n'l'd  follow  you'n  to  the 
other  end  of  the  world,  look  you ;  but 
when  one  gives  one's  life,  one's  heart, 
and  all  a  body's  savings  and  neglects  a 
body's  husband — which  there's  Cibot  ill — 
and  then  hears  one's  self  called  a  villain 
— why  that  coffee's  a  little  too  strong  for 
my  liking — " 

"Goffee?" 

"Yes,  coffee,  I  say!  But  don't  let's 
waste  breath  in  idle  talk ;  let's  come  to 
plain  matters  of  fact.  Well,  then,  you 
owes  me  for  three  months  at  a  hundred 
and  ninety  francs  a  month ;  that  makes 
five  hundred  and  seventy  francs ;    then 


there's  the  rent  as  I've  paid  twice — 
which  here's  the  receipts — six  hundred 
francs  including  the  sou  per  livre  and 
taxes ;  that's  wellnigh  twelve  hundred 
francs ;  then,  there's  the  two  thousand 
francs,  without  interest  you  understand  ; 
in  all,  three  thousand  one  hundred  and 
ninety-two  francs.  And  then,  consider, 
you  ought  to  have  at  least  two  thousand 
francs  in  hand  to  pay  for  the  nurse  and 
the  doctor  and  medicine  and  the  nurse's 
victuals.  That's  why  I  borrowed  a  thou- 
sand francs  from  Monsieur  Pillerault." 
And  with  these  words  she  produced  the 
two  twenty-pound  notes  that  Gaudissard 
had  given  her. 

Schmucke  listened  to  this  financial 
statement  with  an  astonishment  that 
can  easily  be  conceived ;  for  he  knew  as 
much  about  monej'  matters  as  a  cat 
knows  about  music. 

"Montame  Zipod,  Bons  is  not  in  his 
zenzes.  Egscuse  him,  gontinue  to  nurze 
him,  gontinue  to  be  our  Brovidenze — I 
entreat  you  on  iny  knees." 

And  the  German  prostrated  himself 
before  Dame  Cibot  and  kissed  the  hands 
of  this  savage. 

"Listen  to  me,  m^'  good  pussy,"  said 
she,  raising  Schmucke  from  the  ground, 
and  kissing  him  on  the  forehead  :  "Here's 
Cibot  laid  up ;  he's  in  bed  ;  I've  just  sent 
for  Dr.  Poulain  to  him.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances I  must  put  vay  affairs  in  trim. 
Besides  which,  when  Cibot  saw  me  go 
back  to  the  lodge  crying,  he  up  and  flew 
into  such  a  rage  that  he's  against  letting 
me  put  nxy  foot  inside  this  place  again. 
It"s  he  as  is  a-asking  for  his  money,  and 
after  all  it  is  his,  you  know  !  We  women 
have  nothing  to  do  with  sucli  matters. 
But  paying-  him  his  money — three  thou- 
sand two  hundred  francs — that'll  keep 
him  quiet  perhaps.  It's  his  whole  fort- 
une, poor  man,  his  savings  during  twenty- 
six  years'  housekeeping,  the  fruits  of  the 
sweat  of  his  brow.  He  must  have  his 
money  to-morrow,  it's  no  use  sluifHing 
about  the  business.  You  don't  know  Ci- 
bot :  when  he  is  angry  he's  quite  capable 
of  committing  murder.  Well !  I  may, 
perhaps,  manage  to  get  him  to  allow  me 
to  go  on  attending  on  you  two.    Make 


160 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


your  mind  easj',  I'll  let  him  go  on  at  me 
as  much  as  ever  he  chooses ;  I'll  suffer 
that  martyrdom  for  your  sake — for  you're 
an  angel,  j'ou  are." 

"  No,  I  am  onlj'  a  boor  man  who  lofes 
his  friend,  and  woot  gife  his  life  to  zave 
him." 

"  Yes,  but  how  about  money  ?  My 
good  Monsieur  Schmucke,  let's  suppose 
you  don't  give  me  a  farthing,  still,  you 
must  scrape  together  three  thousand 
francs  for  your  n'actual  wants.  Good- 
ness mo,  do  you  know  what  I'd  do  if  I 
were  in  your  shoes  ?  I  wouldn't  make 
any  bones  about  it ;  but  I'd  just  take  and 
sell  seven  or  eight  wretched  pictures  and 
stick  some  of  those  as  are  in  your  room, 
with  their  faces  turned  to  the  wall,  in 
their  places;  for  one  picture's  just  as  good 
as  another,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"But  why  should  I  do  dat?"  asked 
Schmucke. 

"  Why,  you  see,  he's  that  artful — of 
course  I  know  it's  all  along  of  his  com- 
plaint, for  when  he's  well,  he's  a  regular 
lamb — that  he  might  take  it  into  his  head 
to  get  up  and  ferret  about,  and  if  it  hap- 
pens he  should  get  as  far  as  the  salon, 
although  to  be  sure  he's  that  weak  that 
he  can't  cross  the  threshold  of  his  door, 
he'd  find  the  number  of  pictures  all 
right !  " 

"Dat  is  quite  true,"  said  Schmucke. 

"But  we'll  tell  him  about  the  sale  of 
the  pictures  when  he's  got  quite  well 
again.  If  you  want  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  the  sale,  you  can  lay  the  whole 
blame  on  my  shoulders,  on  the  needcessity 
of  pajing  me.  Come,  mj'  back  is  broad 
enough — " 

"  I  gan  not  dizpose  of  things  which  do 
not  pelong  to  me,"  replied  the  worthy 
German,  with  simplicity. 

"Well  then  I  shall  summons  you  at 
once,  3'ou  and  Monsieur  Pons." 

"  Why,  dat  will  kill  him—" 

"  Make  your  choice  !  Sell  the  pictures, 
and  tell  him  afterward — you  can  show  him 
the  summons." 

' '  Ferry  veil,  zummons  us — that  will  be 
my  egscuze — I  will  show  him  de  judg- 
ment." 

At  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  that 


very  day  Schmucke  was  called  out  by 
Madame  Cibot  who,  in  the  interim,  had 
consulted  a  bailiff.  The  German  found 
himself  confronted  \>y  Monsieur  Taba- 
reau,  who  demanded  payment  of  the 
amount  due;  and  when  Schmucke,  with 
fear  and  trembling,  had  made  his  an- 
swer to  the  demand,  he  was  served  with 
a  summons  calling  upon  himself  and  Pons 
to  appear  before  the  tribunal  and  listen 
to  judgment  for  the  amount  due.  The 
aspect  of  this  official  and  of  the  stamped 
paper  scribbled  with  hieroglyphics  pro- 
duced so  great  an  effect  on  Schmucke 
that  he  offered  no  further  resistance  to 
the  sale. 

"Zell  de  bigdures,"  said  he,  with  tears 
in  his  eyes. 

At  six  o'clock  next  morning,  Eli  Magus 
and  Remonencq  were  busy  unhooking  the 
pictures  which  they  had  respectively' 
chosen.  Tv/o  strictlj'  formal  receipts,  for 
two  thousand  five  hundred  francs  each, 
were  given  in  the  following  terms  :  "  I, 
the  undersigned,  acting  on  behalf  of  Mon- 
sieur Pons,  do  hereby  acknowledge  the 
receipt  of  the  sum  of  two  thousand  five 
hundred  francs  from  Monsieur  Elie  Magus 
for  four  pictures  sold  to  him  by  me ;  the 
said  sum  being  to  be  employed  oh  behalf 
of  Monsieur  Pons.  One  of  these  pictures, 
which  is  ascribed  to  Durer,  is  the  portrait 
of  a  Avoman  ;  the  second,  which  is  of  the 
Italian  school,  is  also  a  portrait;  the  third 
is  a  Dutch  landscape  by  Breughel;  and 
the  fourth  a  Florentine  picture  represent- 
ing '  The  Holy  Family, '  by  an  unknown 
master." 

The  receipt  given  hy  Remonencq  was 
couched  in  the  same  terms,  and  comprised 
a  Greuze,  a  Claude  Lorrain,  a  Rubens, 
and  a  Van  Dyck,  disguised  under  the  de- 
scription of  pictures  of  the  French  and 
Flemish  schools. 

"  Dis  money  would  make  one  belief  that 
dese  gewgaws  are  worth  zomething,"  said 
Schmucke,  when  the  five  thousand  francs 
were  handed  to  him. 

"  Oh  !  the  collection  is  certainly  worth 
something  ;  I  would  willingly  give  a  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  for  the  lot,"  said 
Remonencq. 

The   Auvergnat  was  asked  to  replace 


COUSIN    PONS. 


161 


the  eight  pictures  by  an  equal  number  of 
pictures  of  similar  size.  This  little  service 
he  performed  by  making  a  selection  from 
among'  the  inferior  pictures,  which  Pons 
had  placed  in  Schmucke's  I'oom,  and  fix- 
ing them  in  the  emptj-  frames.  When 
once  Elie  Magus  had  the  four  master- 
pieces safely  in  his  possession,  he  induced 
Madame  Cibot  to  accompany  him  to  his 
house,  under  the  pretext  that  they  had  to 
square  accounts.  But  as  soon  as  she  was 
there,  he  began  to  plead  poverty ;  he 
found  flaws  in  the  pictures,  said  that  it 
would  be  necessary  to  put  new  backs  to 
them,  and  concluded  bj'  offering  her  a 
commission  of  thirty  thousand  francs 
only.  This  he  prevailed  on  her  to  accept 
by  flourishing  before  her  eyes  those  daz- 
zling bits  of  paper  on  which  the  bank  has 
engraved  the  magic  words  Mille  Francs! 
Magus  decreed  that  Remonencq  should 
give  a  like  sum  to  Dame  Cibot — which 
sum  he  lent  to  Remonencq  on  the  security' 
of  a  deposit  of  his  four  pictures.  These 
four  pictures  of  Remonencq's  seemed  to 
Magus  so  magnificent  that  he  could  not 
make  up  his  mind  to  part  with  them  ;  so 
the  next  day  he  went  to  the  broker,  and 
paid  him  six  thousand  francs  by  way  of 
premium ;  whei-eupon  Remonencq  gave 
him  a  sale  note  making  the  four  pictures 
over  to  him. 

Madame  Cibot,  who  was  now  worth 
sixty-eight  thousand  francs,  once  more 
swore  her  two  co-conspirators  to  the  pro- 
foundest  secrecy.  She  begged  the  Jew  to 
tell  her  how  so  to  invest  her  money  that 
no  one  should  know  that  she  possessed  it. 

"Buj'^  shares  in  the  Orleans  railway. 
They  are  now  thirty  francs  below  par; 
you  will  double  your  capital  within  three 
years,  and  your  money  will  be  in  the  form 
of  a  few  scraps  of  paper,  which  you  can 
keep  in  a  portfolio." 

"Stay  here.  Monsieur  Magus,  while  I 
go  to  the  agent  of  Monsieur  Pons's  fami- 
ly- ;  he  wants  to  know  what  sum  you 
would  give  for  all  the  rattle-traps  up 
yonder ;  I  will  go  and  bring  him  to 
you." 

"Ah  !  if  she  were  only  a  widow  !  "  said 
Remonencq  to  Magus.  "  She  would  ex- 
actly suit  me,  for  she  is  rich  now — " 

Balzac — P 


"  Especially  if  she  puts  her  money  into 
Orleans  railway  stock  ;  it  will  be  doubled 
in  two  years'  time.  I  have  invested  mj' 
little  savings  in  it ;  'tis  mj'  daughter's 
portion,"  said  the  Jew.  "Come,  let's 
take  a  turn  upon  the  boulevard,  while  we 
are  waiting  for  the  advocate — " 

"  If  God  would  but  take  Cibot,  who  is 
already  very  unwell,"  said  Remonencq, 
"  I  should  have  a  glorious  wife  to  keep 
my  shop  for  me,  and  might  go  in  for 
business  on  a  large  scale." 


XXIII. 


BEAUTIES   OF   AN   ANNUITY. 

"Good-day,  dear  Monsieur  Fraisier," 
said  Dame  Cibot,  in  a  wheedhng  voice,  as 
she  entered  her  counsel's  study.  "  Well, 
and  what  is  this  as  your  portress  tells 
me  —  that  you  are  gomg  to  leave  this 
place  ? " 

"  Yes,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot,  I  have 
taken  the  first-floor  rooms  in  the  house 
occupied  by  Dr.  Poulain.  They  are  the 
rooms  directly  above  his.  I  want  to  bor- 
row from  two  to  three  thousand  francs, 
in  order  that  I  may  furnish  the  suite 
properly ;  for  it  is  really  very  handsome  ; 
the  landlord  has  redecorated  it  through- 
out. As  I  told  j-ou,  I  am  now  intrusted 
with  the  interests  of  tlie  President  de 
Marville,  as  well  as  with  yours.  I  am  on 
the  point  of  giving  up  the  business  of  a 
general  agent,  and  am  about  to  be  placed 
upon  the  roll  of  advocates ;  so  I  must  be 
well  housed.  The  advocates  of  Paris 
won't  allow  anj'  one  to  be  enrolled  unless 
he  has  decently  furnished  apartments,  a 
library,  and  so  forth.  I  am  a  doctor  of 
laws,  I  have  completed  my  term  of  pro- 
bation, and  have  already  secured  some 
influential  patrons.  Well,  and  how  do  we 
stand  now  ?" 

"  Wfll  you  accept  my  little  hoard  ?  It 
is  in  the  savings  bank,"  saitl  Dame  Cibot. 
"  I  haven't  much— only  three  thousand 
francs— the  fruit  of  twenty-five  years' 
pinching  and  scraping— you  could  give 
me  a  bill  of  exchange,  as  Remonencq  puts 


162 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


it ;  for  as  for  mc,  I'm  quite  ig-norant,  I 
know  naught  but  what  I'm  told." 

"  No ;  the  statutes  of  the  order  of  advo- 
cates forbid  a  member  of  the  order  to  put 
his  name  to  a  bill  of  cxchang'e ;  I  will  g-ive 
you  a  receipt  bearing  interest  at  five  per 
cent,  and  you  can  return  it  to  me  if  I 
succeed  in  getting  j'ou  an  annuity  of 
twelve  hundred  francs  out  of  old  Pons's 
estate." 

Dame  Cibot,  caught  in  the  trap,  held 
her  tongue. 

"Silence  gives  consent,"  pursued  Frai- 
sier.     "  Bring  me  the  money  to-morrow." 

"  Oh  !  I  shall  be  only  too  glad  to  paj' 
you  your  fees  in  advance ;  it's  a  way  of 
making  sui-e  of  my  n'annuity,"  said  Dame 
Cibot. 

"Where  are  we  now  ?  "  said  Fraisier, 
nodding  his  head  aflBrmatively.  "I  saw 
Poulain  yesterday  evening;  it  would  seem 
that  you  are  leading  your  patient  along 
at  a  very  pretty  pace;  One  more  on- 
slaught like  that  of  yesterday,  and 
stones  will  begin  to  form  in  the  gall 
bladder.  Now,  do  be  gentle  with  him, 
dear  Madame  Cibot ;  it  doesn't  do  to  lay 
up  a  stock  of  remorse.     It  shortens  life." 

"Don't  talk  to  me  n'about  your  re- 
morse !  I  suppose  3'ou're  going  to  cram 
your  guillotine  down  my  throat  again  ? 
Monsieur  Pons  is  an  obstinate  old  fellow  ! 
You  don't  know  him !  It's  he  as  makes 
me  cut  up  rough.  There's  no  man  living 
more  malicious  than  he  is.  His  relations 
were  quite  right;  he's  sullen,  revengeful, 
and  o'stinate !  Monsieur  Magus  is  at 
the  house,  as  I  told  you,  and  is  a-wait- 
ing  for  you." 

"  Good  !  I  shall  be  there  as  soon  as 
you  are.  The  amount  of  your  annuity 
depends  upon  the  value  of  this  collection. 
If  it  turns  out  to  be  worth  eight  hundred 
thousand  francs,  your  annuity  will  be 
fifteen  hundred  francs — whv,  it's  a  fort- 
une ! " 

"  Well,  I'll  go  and  tell  them  to  value 
the  things  honesth'." 

An  hour  later,  while  Pons  (under  the 
influence  of  a  sedative  draught  ordered 
by  the  doctor,  and  administered  by 
Schmucke,  but  doubled  in  quantity  by 
Dame  Cibot  without  Schmucke 's  knowl- 


edge) w^as  buried  in  a  profound  slumber, 
those  three  gallows-birds — Fraisier,  Re- 
monencq,  and  Magus — were  engaged  in 
examining,  piece  by  piece,  the  seventeen 
hundred  objects  of  which  the  old  musi- 
cian's collection  was  compossd.  Schmucke 
had  gone  to  bed  ;  so  these  three  ravens,  on 
the  scent  of  their  carrion,  were  masters  of 
the  situation. 

"  Don't  make  a  noise,"  exclaimed  Dame 
Cibot,  whenever  Magus  grew  enthusiastic 
and  entered  into  a  discussion  with  Re- 
monencq  while  enlightening  the  latter  as 
to  the  value  of  some  beautiful  work  of  art. 

The  sight  of  these  four  different  cupidi- 
ties, appraising  their  succession,  during 
the  slumbers  of  him  whose  death  was  the 
object  of  their  greedj'  expectations,  was 
enough  to  rend  the  heart.  The  valuation 
of  the  property  contained  in  the  salon 
occupied  three  hours. 

"  Every  object  here  is  worth,  on  an 
average,  a  thousand  francs,"  said  the 
greasy  old  Jew. 

"  Why,  that  makes  seventeen  hundred 
thousand  francs!"  cried  the  astounded 
Fraisier. 

"Not  to  me,"  pursued  Magu.s,  whose 
eyes  grew  suddenly  cold  and  steel-like. 
"  I  would  not  give  more  than  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  ;  since  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  say  how  long  one  might  have  to 
keep  the  things  on  hand.  There  are  some 
masterpieces  here  which  it  would  take  ten 
years  to  get  rid  of ;  so  that  the  cost  price 
is  doubled,  at  compound  interest ;  but  I 
would  give  eight  hundred  thousand  francs 
ready  money." 

"There  are  some  enamels,  and  some 
gold  and  silver  snuff-boxes,  and  some 
miniatures  and  stained  glass,  besides," 
remarked  Remonencq. 

"Can  we  look  at  them?"  asked  Fraisier. 

"  I'U  just  step  in  and  see  if  he's  fast 
asleep,"  replied  Dame  Cibot ;  and,  at  a 
sign  from  her,  the  three  birds  of  prey  en- 
tered the  bedroom. 

"The  masterpieces  are  there,"  said 
Magus,  pointing  to  the  salon,  while  every 
hair  in  his  white  beard  quivered,  "  but 
here  are  the  riches  !  And  what  riches 
they  are,  too !  Monarchs  have  nothing 
finer  among  their  treasures." 


COUSIN    PONS. 


163 


At  sig-ht  of  the  snuff-boxes  the  eyes  of 
Remonencq  kindled  and  shone  like  a  pair 
of  carbuncles ;  while  Fraisier,  cool  and 
calm  as  a  serpent  erect  upon  its  tail, 
thrust  forward  his  flat  head,  and  assumed 
the  attitude  in  which  painters  are  wont  to 
depict  Mephistopheles.  These  three  con- 
trasted money-grubbers,  each  of  whom 
thirsted  for  g-old  as  devils  thirst  for  the 
dews  of  Paradise,  cast  an  unconcerted  but 
simultaneous  glance  at  the  owner  of  all 
this  wealth ;  for  Pons  had  made  a  move- 
ment in  his  sleep,  as  of  one  troubled  with 
the  nightmare. 

Suddenh-,  under  the  magnetic  influence 
of  these  three  diabolic  rays,  the  patient 
opened  his  eyes,  and  began  to  utter  pierc- 
ing shrieks. 

"  Thieves  !  Thieves  !  Look ;  there  they 
are,"  shouted  he.     "  Police  !  Murder  !  " 

It  was  clear  that  his  dream  had  not 
been  cut  short,  though  he  was  wide 
awake  ;  for  he  had  started  up  in  bed,  with 
eyes  dilated,  blank  and  motionless,  and 
could  not  stir. 

EUe  Magus  and  Remonencq  made  for 
the  door,  but  having  reached  it  they 
were  nailed  to  the  spot  by  the  words  : 

'•■  Magus  here  I — I  am  betrayed." 

The  sick  man  had  been  awakened  by 
his  instinct  for  the  preservation  of  his 
treasure — an  instinct  which  is  quite  as 
strong  a^  that  of  self-preservation. 

"  Madame  Cibot,  who  is  that  gentle- 
man ?  "  he  exclaimed,  shuddering  at  the 
very  sight  of  Fraisier,  who  did  not  at- 
tempt to  move. 

'•  My  stars,  how  could  I  shut  the  door 
in  his  face  ?  "  cried  the  dame,  winking  at 
Fraisier,  and  making  a  sign  to  him. 
"  The  gentleman  came  here  only  a  min- 
ute since,  as  the  representative  of  your 
family — " 

Fraisier  rewarded  Dame  Cibot  with  a 
gesture  of  admiration. 

"  Yes,  monsieur,  I  came  here  on  behaK 
of  Madame  de  Marville,  her  husband  and 
her  daughter,  to  express  to  you  their  re- 
gret ;  by  the  merest  chance  thej"^  have 
been  informed  of  your  illness,  and  they 
would  like  to  nurse  you  themselves.  They 
want  you  to  go  to  Marville  for  the  benefit 
of  your  health ;  Madame  la  Vicomtesse 


Popinot— the  little  Cecile  of  whom  you  are 
so  fond — will  act  as  your  nurse  there;  she 
took  your  part,  and  has  removed  the  mis- 
apprehension under  which  her  mother  was 
laboring." 

"  And  so  my  heirs  have  sent  you  here, 
have  they,  with  the  most  skillful  connois- 
seur, the  keenest  expert,  in  all  Paris,  for 
your  g-uide  ?  "  exclaimed  the  indignant 
Pons.  "  Hah  I  the  jest  is  excellent !  " 
pursued  he,  laughing  Uke  a  madman. 
"  You  have  come  to  appraise  my  pictures, 
my  curiosities,  my  snuff-boxes,  my  mini- 
atures !  Appraise  away !  You  have  a 
man  with  you  who  not  only  knows  all 
about  everything  of  the  kind,  but  can 
purchase  too,  for  he  is  a  millionaire  ten 
times  over.  My  dear  relations  will  not 
have  long  to  yait  for  my  succession," 
added  he  with  profound  irony ;  "  they 
have  given  me  the  finishing  stroke.  Ah, 
Madame  Cibot,  j-ou  call  yourself  my 
mother,  and  you  introduce  the  dealers, 
my  rival  and  the  Camusots  into  my  apart- 
ments while  I  am  asleep — away  with  you, 
one  and  aU  !  " 

And  so  saying,  the  poor  man,  over- 
stimulated  by  the  twofold  influence  of 
anger  and  of  fear,  got  out  of  bed,  emaci- 
ated as  he  was. 

"  Lean  on  m3'  arm,  monsieur,"  said 
Dame  Cibot,  rushing  up  to  Pons,  in  order 
to  save  him  from  falling;  "pray  calm 
yourself;  the  gentlemen  are  gone." 

"  I  will  have  a  look  at  the  salon,"  said 
the  dying  man. 

Dame  Cibot  motioned  to  the  three  ra- 
vens to  take  fhght ;  then  seizing  hold  of 
Pons,  she  lifted  him  in  her  arms,  as  if  he 
had  been  a  feather,  and  totally  disregard- 
ing his  cries,  put  him  into  bed  again ; 
then,  seeing  that  the  unhappy  collector 
was  quite  exhausted,  she  went  and  closed 
the  door  of  the  apartments.  Pons's  three 
tormentors  were  still  upon  the  landing; 
and  when  Dame  Cibot  saw  them,  and 
overheard  Fraisier  saying  to  Magus: 
"Write  me  a  letter,  signed  by  both  of 
you,  undertaking  to  give  niae  hundred 
thousand  francs  down  for  Monsieur  Pons's 
collection,  and  we  will  take  care  that  you 
secure  a  goodly-  profit,"  she  told  them  to 
await  her  return.     Thereupon,  Fraisier 


164 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


•whispered  a  word — only  a  word — which 
no  one  caught,  into  the  ear  of  the  por- 
tress, and  went  down,  with  the  two  deal- 
ers, to  the  lodfje. 

"Are  they  gone,  Madame  Cibot  ?"  said 
the  unhappy  Pons,  when  the  portress 
went  back  to  him. 

"  Gone  ? — who  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  Those  men."' 

"  What  men  ?  So  you've  been  seeing- 
men  now,  have  you  ?  "  quoth  the  dame. 
"  You've  just  had  a  violent  attack  of 
fever,  and  would  have  thrown  yourself 
out  of  the  window  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
me  ;  and  now  3'ou  keep  on  talking-  to  me 
about  some  men.  Are  j^ou  always  going 
to  be  like  that  ?  " 

"What !  do  you  mean  to  say  that  there 
wasn't  a  person  there  jusfanow — a  gentle- 
man who  said  he  had  been  sent  here  hy 
my  family  ?  " 

"  Are  you  going  to  talk  me  down 
again?"  said  she.  "My  word,  do  you 
know  where  you  ought  to  be  put  ?  In 
Charenton  ! — you  see  men — " 

"Yes,  Elie  Mngus.  Reraonencq — " 

"  Oh  !  as  for  Remonencq  —  you  may 
n'have  seen  him;  for  he  came  up  to  tell 
me  as  my  poor  Cibot  is  so  ill  that  I  shall 
have  to  leave  3'ou  to  yourself  to  get  well 
again,  as  best  you  can.  Mj'  Cibot  before 
everybody,  look  you  !  When  ray  man  is 
ill,  I  know  nothing  about  n'any  one  else. 
Do  try  to  keep  quiet,  and  go  to  sleep  for 
a  couple  of  hours,  for  I've  told  'em  to 
send  for  Doctor  Poulain,  and  I'll  come 
back  with  him.  Come  now,  do  drink  your 
draught  and  be  prudent." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  there  was  no 
one  in  my  room  standing  there — when  I 
woke  just  now?" 

"  Not  a  soul !  "  replied  she,  "you  must 
have  caught  the  reflection  of  Monsieur 
Remonencq  in  your  mirrors." 

"You  are  right,  Madame  Cibot,"  said 
the  sick  man,  becoming  as  mild  as  a 
lamb. 

"Well!  now  you  are  rational — adieu, 
my  cherub,  keep  quiet,  I'll  be  with  you 
again  in  an  instant." 

When  Pons  heard  the  sound  of  the 
shutting  of  the  outer  door,  he  summoned 
up  all  his  remaining  strength  to  rise  from 


his  bed  ;  for,  said  he  to  himself :  "  They 
are  deceiving  me.  I  am  being  plundered. 
Schmucke  is  a  mere  child  ;  he  would  allow 
tlieni  to  take  him  and  tie  him  in  a  bag !  " 

And  the  sick  man,  fired  with  a  desire 
to  clear  up  the  fearful  scene,  which  seemed 
to  him  too  vivid  to  be  a  mere  vision,  man- 
aged to  crawl  to  the  door  of  his  room. 
Opening  the  door  with  great  difficulty, 
he  found  himself  in  the  salon.  There  the 
sight  of  his  beloved  pictures,  his  statues, 
his  Florentine  bronzes  and  his  porcelains 
rewifled  him.  Robed  in  a  dressing-gown, 
the  collector  (whose  legs  were  bare  while 
his  head  was  burning)  continued  to  make 
the  tour  of  the  two  alleys  formed  by  the 
row  of  credences  and  bureaus  which  di- 
vided the  salon  into  two  equal  parts.  At 
the  first  all-embracing  glance  of  the 
owner's  eye,  the  objects  in  the  museum 
were  counted  and  the  collection  seemed 
intact.  Pons  was  just  upon  the  very 
point  of  going  back  to  bed,  when  his  eye 
suddenly  fell  upon  a  portrait  by  Greuze, 
in  a  place  that  was  formerly  occupied 
by  Sebastian  del  Piombo's  "Knight  of 
Malta." 

Swift  as  the  forked  lightning  cleaves  the 
stormy  sky,  suspicion  fiashed  across  his 
mind.  He  looked  to  the  places  appropri- 
ated to  his  eight  principal  pictures,  and 
found  that  those  pictures  had  all  disap- 
peared to  make  room  for  others.  A  black 
veil  suddenly  spread  itself  over  the  poor 
man's  eyes ;  he  was  seized  with  a  faint- 
ing fit,  and  fell  upon  the  floor.  So  deep 
was  the  swoon,  that  Pons  lay  for  two 
whole  hours  upon  the  spot  where  he  had 
fallen,  and  was  found  there  \)y  Schmucke, 
when  he  awoke  and  left  his  bedroom,  to 
pay  a  visit  to  his  sick  friend.  It  cost 
Schmucke  a  world  of  trouble  to  raise  the 
moribund  musician  and  get  him  into  bed 
again ;  but  when  the  words  that  he  ad- 
dressed to  that  ha  If -inanimate  figure 
received  no  answer,  save  a  few  vague 
stutterings  and  a  vacant  stare,  the  poor 
German,  instead  of  losing  his  self-posses- 
sion, showed  himself  a  hero  of  friendship. 

Under  the  influence  of  despair,  this 
child-man  was  inspired  with  one  of  those 
ideas  which  occur  to  lovmg  women  and 
to   mothers.     He   warmed    some   finger- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


165 


napkins — for  he  managed  to  find  some 
fing-er-napkins  !  —  folded  some  of  them 
round  Pons's  hands,  applied  others  to  the 
pit  of  his  stomach,  then,  taking-  the  cold 
damp  forehead  between  his  hands  he  in- 
voked life  with  a  potency  of  volition  worthy 
of  Apollonius  of  Tyana.  He  kissed  the 
eyes  of  his  friend  just  as  the  Marys  of  the 
great  Italian  sculptors  kiss  the  Saviour, 
in  those  bass-reliefs  which  are  called  pieta. 
These  divine  efforts,  this  transfusion  of 
one  life  into  another,  this  labor,  as  of  ma- 
ternal love  and  womanly  passion,  were 
crowned  with  complete  success ;  at  the 
end  of  half  an  hour.  Pons  had  been  warmed 
into  the  likeness  of  a  living  man  once 
more ;  the  light  of  life  i-eturned  to  his 
eyes ;  and  the  organs  of  the  body,  stimu- 
lated by  external  heat,  resumed  their 
functions. 

Schmucke  then  gave  Pons  a  mixture  of 
barlej'-water  and  wine,  and  thereupon  the 
spirit  of  life  infused  itself  into  the  body 
and  understanding  once  more  beamed 
upon  the  brow  that  had  been  insensible 
as  stone.  Pons  was  now  conscious  of  the 
sacred  self-devotion  and  energetic  friend- 
ship to  which  he  owed  his  resurrection. 

"  But  for  you  I  was  a  dead  man  !  "  said 
he,  as  the  tears  of  the  worthy  German — 
who  was  crying  and  laughing  at  one  and 
the  same  time— fell  gentlj-^  on  his  face. 

When  poor  Schmucke,  whose  strength 
was  now  quite  exhausted,  heard  these 
words — words  which  he  had  waited  for 
in  all  the  delirium  of  hope,  which  is,  to 
the  full,  as  potent  as  the  delirium  of  de- 
spair— he  collapsed  like  a  rent  balloon. 

It  was  now  his  turn  to  fall,  and  sinking 
into  an  armchair,  he  joined  his  hands  to- 
gether, and  offered  thanks  to  God  in  fer- 
vent prayer.  In  his  opinion  a  miracle  had 
been  wrought.  He  did  not  believe  in  the 
efficacy  of  his  acted  prayer;  but  he  did 
believe  in  the  power  of  the  God  whom  he 
had  invoked.  The  miracle,  however,  was, 
after  all,  a  natural  phenomenon,  often 
verified  by  doctoi's.  A  patient  surrounded 
by  a  circle'  of  loving  friends,  and  nursed 
by  those  who  are  concerned  to  save  his 
life,  will  recover  ;  while  another,  who,  in 
all  other  respects,  is  similarly  situated, 
but  is  nursed  by  hirelings,  will  succumb. 


Physicians  will  not  admit  that  this  differ- 
ence is  the  result  of  spontaneous  magnet- 
ism ;  they  attribute  the  beneficial  effects 
to  intelligent  nursing  and  faithful  obedi- 
ence to  their  injunctions;  but  many  a 
mother  knows  full  well  the  \irtue  of  these 
ardent  projections  of  one  abiding  and  per- 
sistent wish. 

"  My  good  Schmucke — " 

"  Don't  talk  ;  I  can  understand  you  wid 
my  heart ;  reboze  j'ourzelf,  reboze  your- 
zelf,"  said  the  musician,  smiling. 

"  Poor  friend  !  Noble  being  !  Child  of 
God — living  in  God  !  Sole  creature  that 
has  ever  loved  me  !  "  said  Pons,  in  broken 
sentences,  and  in  tones  to  which  his  voice 
had  never  been  attuned  before. 

The  soul,  preparing  to  take  flight, 
poured  itself  forth  in  these  words — words 
that  caused  Schmucke  almost  as  much 
delight  as  love  itself  has  it  in  its  power 
to  confer. 

"Liff  !  liff  !"  he  cried.  "And  I  will 
begome  a  lion  !  I  will  work  for  bod  of 
uz." 

"  Listen  to  me,  my  good,  faithful,  and 
admirable  friend  ;  let  me  speak ;  time 
presses,  for  I  am  a  doomed  man  ;  I  shall 
not  survive  these  reiterated  crises." 

Schmucke  wept  like  a  child. 

"  Listen  to  me  now,"  said  Pons  ;  "you 
will  have  time  for  weeping  afterward.  As 
a  Christian  it  is  j-our  duty  to  submit. 
Now,  I  have  been  robbed,  and  Cibot  is 
the  robber.  Before  I  leave  you,  I  am 
bound  to  enlighten  you  on  worldly  mat- 
ters of  whicli  you  know  nothing.  Eight 
pictures,  of  considerable  value,  have  been 
taken." 

"  Forgiff  me ;  it  was  I  dat  zold  dem." 

"  You.'" 

"  Yez,  J,"  said  the  poor  German.  "  We 
were  zummoned." 

"  Summoned  ?     By  whom  ?  " 

"  Wait  a  moment !  " 

Hereupon  Schmucke  went  in  search  of 
the  stamped  document  left  by  the  bailiff; 
and  returned  with  it  in  his  hand. 

Pons  read  the  jargon  attentively,  al- 
lowed the  paper  to  slip  from  his  hand, 
and  was  silent.  Tliis  keen  observer  of 
the  material  products  of  human  skill  had 
hitherto   neglected   the  moral   aspect  of 


166 


THh!    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


thinj^s  ;  now,  at  length,  he  counted  every 
thread  in  the  web  which  Dam(>  Cibot  had 
woven.  The  verve  of  the  artist,  the  in- 
telhg-ence  of  the  pupil  of  the  Academy 
of  Rome,  all  his  youthful  energy  returned 
to  him  for  a  few  moments. 

' '  My  good  Schmucke,  obey  me  as  a 
soldier  obeys  his  ofQcer.  Listen  to  me  ! 
Go  down  to  the  lodge  and  tell  this  dread- 
ful woman  that  I  should  like  to  see  the 
envoy  of  my  cousin  the  president  again ; 
and  that  if  he  doesn't  return,  my  inten- 
tion is  to  bequeath  my  collection  to  the 
museum  ;  tell  her  that  I  am  on  the  point 
of  making  my  will." 

Schmucke  performed  the  commission ; 
but  no  sooner  had  he  opened  his  lips  than 
Dame  Cibot  began  to  smile. 

'"Our  dear  patient  had  an  attack  of 
raging  fever,  my  dear  Monsieur  Schmucke, 
and  took  it  n'into  his  head  as  there  was 
some  folks  in  his  room.  'Pon  my  word 
as  an  honest  woman  no  one  has  been  here 
n'on  behalf  of  our  dear  sufferer's  rela- 
tions." 

With  this  answer  Schmucke  returned 
to  Pons,  and  repeated  it  to  him  word  for 
word. 

"She  is  more  clever,  more  cunning, 
more  astute  and  Machiavellian  than  I 
imagined,"  said  Pons  with  a  smile.  "  She 
lies  even  in  her  lodge  !  Just  fancy ;  she 
brought  hither,  this  very  morning,  a  Jew 
named  Elie  Magus,  Remonencq,  and  a 
third  person  whom  I  do  not  know,  but 
who  is  more  hideous  than  both  the  others 
put  together.  She  counted  on  my  being 
asleep,  to  appraise  the  value  of  my  suc- 
cession ;  it  so  happened  that  I  awoke  and 
saw  the  trio  poising  my  snuff-boxes  in 
their  hands.  In  short,  the  sti'anger  said 
he  had  been  sent  here  by  the  Camusots  ; 
I  entered  into  conversation  with  him. 
That  infamous  Cibot  maintained  that  I 
was  dreaming.  Mj^  good  Schmucke,  I 
was  not  dreaming !  I  heard  the  man 
distinctly',  he  spoke  to  me  ;  the  two  deal- 
ers took  fright  and  made  for  the  door. 
Now  I  expected  Dame  Cibot  would  con- 
tradict herself ;  but  my  attempt  to  make 
her  do  so  has  failed.  I  will  lay  another 
trap  into  which  the  wicked  woman  is  sure 
to  fall.     You,  my  poor  friend,  take  this 


Cibot  to  be  an  angel ;  whereas  she  is  a 
woman  who,  out  of  pure  greed,  has  been 
slowly  murdering  me  during  the  last 
month.  I  was  loath  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  so  much  wickedness  in  a 
woman  who  had  served  us  faithfully  for 
several  years.  That  unwillingness  has 
been  my  ruin.  How  much  did  you  get 
for  the  pictures  ?  " 

"  Five  thousand  francs  !  " 

"  Good  God  !  they  were  worth  twenty 
times  as  much  !  "  cried  Pons.  "  Thej' 
were  the  very  flower  of  my  collection. 
I  have  no  time  to  bring  an  action ;  be- 
sides, I  should  have  to  put  you  forward 
as  the  dupe  of  these  scoundrels.  A  law- 
suit would  be  the  death  of  you  !  You 
don't  know  what  a  court  of  justice  is ! 
'tis  the  common  sewer  of  every  infamy ! 
Hearts  such  as  yours  sicken  and  succumb 
at  the  sight  of  so  many  horrors.  And 
besides,  you  will  be  rich  enough  as  mat- 
ters stand.  Those  pictures  cost  me  four 
thousand  francs,  and  I  have  had  them 
six-and-thirty  years.  But  we  have  been 
robbed  in  the  most  skillful  fashion  possi- 
ble. I  am  on  the  brink  of  the  grave  ;  my 
only  care  is  for  you — for  you  the  best  of 
creatures.  Now,  I  will  not  have  you 
plundered.  I  say  you,  because  all  that 
I  have  is  yours.  Therefore  I  tell  j'ou 
that  you  ought  to  trust  no  one ;  and  jou 
have  never  distrusted  any  one  in  the 
whole  course  of  your  life.  You  are,  I 
know,  under  God's  protection  ;  but  He 
may  forget  j'ou  for  a  moment,  and  then 
you  will  be  pillaged  like  a  merchantman 
by  a  pirate.  Dame  Cibot  is  a  monster ; 
she  is  killing'  me  !  and  you  regard  her  as 
an  incarnate  angel.  Now,  I  want  you  to 
see  her  in  her  true  colors  ;  so  go  and  beg 
her  to  mention  the  name  of  a  notary  who 
will  receive  my  will,  and  I'll  show  her  to 
you  with  her  hands  in  the  money-bag." 

Schmucke  listened  to  Pons  as  if  Pons 
had  been  relating  the  Apocalypse.  If 
Pons's  theory  were  correct,  and  there 
really  existed  a  being  so  depraved  as  Ma- 
dame Cibot  must  then  needs  be,  her  exist- 
ence was  tantamount,  in  Schmucke's  eyes, 
to  a  total  negation  of  Providence. 

"  My  boor  friend  Pons  is  so  ill  dat  he 
wants  to  mague  his  wiU ;  go  and  fetch  a 


CuDsm  PONS. 


167 


notar3',"  said  the  German  to  Madame 
Cibot,  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  porter's 
lodge. 

These  words  were  uttered  in  the  pres- 
ence of  several  persons,  for  Cibot's  con- 
dition was  wellnigh  desperate ;  Remo- 
nencq,  Remonencq's  sister,  two  portresses 
who  had  hurried  to  the  scene  from  neigh- 
boring' houses,  three  of  the  servants  of 
the  various  lodgers  in  the  houses  and  the 
occupant  of  the  first  floor  of  the  street 
fagade  were  standing  in  the  gate-way. 

"  Ah  !  You  may  just  go  and  fetch  a 
notary  yourself  and  get  your  will  made 
by  any  one  you  like,"  said  Dame  Cibot, 
with  tears  in  her  eyes.  "  I  sha'n't  budge 
from  my  poor  Cibot's  bedside  when  he's 
a-dying.  I'd  give  all  the  Ponses  as  is 
in  the  world  to  save  Cibot — a  man  as 
never  caused  me,  no,  not  two  ounces  of 
trouble  during  thirty  years  that  we've 
lived  together  man  and  wife  !  " 

And  she  retired  into  the  lodge,  leaving 
Schmucke  quite  dumfounded. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  first-floor  lodger 
to  Schmucke,  "  is  Monsieur  Pons  so  verj' 
ill,  then  ?  " 

The  name  of  this  lodger  was  Jolivard  ; 
he  was  a  registry-clerk  in  the  offices  of 
the  Palace  of  Justice. 

"He  was  almost  dying  a  few  minutes 
ago,"  replied  Schmucke,  in  deep  distress. 

'•'  Monsieur  Trognon,  the  notary,  lives 
close  by,  in  the  Rue  Saint  Louis.  He  is 
the  notary  of  the  Quarter,"  observed 
M.  Jolivard. 

"Would  you  like  me  to  go  and  fetch 
him  ?  "  said  Remonencq  to  Schmucke. 

"I  should  be  ferry  clad  if  you  woot," 
replied  Schmucke  ;  ''  for  if  Montame  Zipod 
gannot  nurze  my  friend,  I  should  not  like 
to  leaf  him  in  the  stade  in  which  he  is." 

"Madame  Cibot  told  us  that  he  was 
going  mad,"   pursued  Jolivard. 

"  Bons,  mad  ?  "  exclaimed  Schmucke, 
terror-stricken.  "He  never  was  more 
zensible  in  his  life  ;  and  it  iz  just  dat 
which  magues  me  uneazj'  about  his 
health." 

So  keen  was  the  interest  which  all  the 
members  of  the  little  group  naturally  took 
in  this  conversation,  that  it  i-emained  en- 
graved upon  their  memories.     Schmucke 


did  not  know  Fraisior,  and  therefore  paid 
no  attention  to  his  Satanic  head  and  glist- 
ening eyes.  Fraisier  it  was,  who,  by  whis- 
pering two  words  in  Madame  Cibot's  ear, 
had  prompted  the  wonderful  scene  tliat 
she  had  acted — a  scene  the  conception  of 
which  was,  perhaps,  beyond  the  range  of 
h(!r  unaided  abilities,  but  which  she  had 
plaj^ed  with  all  the  superiority  of  a  mas- 
ter in  the  art.  To  make  Pons  pass  for  a 
lunatic  was  one  of  the  corner-stones  of  the 
edifice  built  by  the  homme  de  lot.  That 
moi-ning's  incident  had  been  of  immense 
sei'vice  to  Fraisier;  and,  but  for  him,  it. 
is  possible  that  Dame  Cibot  might,  in  her 
confusion,  have  betrayed  hei'self  when  the 
innocent  Schmucke  came  to  lay  a  snare 
for  her  by  begging  her  to  recall  the  fam- 
ily emissary.  Remonencq,  meanwhile,  who 
saw  Dr.  Poulain  approaching,  was  only 
too  glad  of  an  excuse  for  getting  away ; 
why,  we  will  proceed  to  explain. 


XXIV. 


THE  TRICKS   OF   A   TESTATOR. 

Rkmonencq  had,  for  the  last  ten  days, 
taken  upon  himself  to  play  the  part  of 
Providence — an  assumption  which  is  pe- 
culiarly^ distasteful  to  Dame  Justice,  who 
claims  a  monopoly  of  that  role.  But  Re- 
monencq's desire  was,  at  any  cost,  to  rid 
himself  of  the  only  obstacle  that  stood 
between  him  and  happiness  ;  and  for  him, 
happiness  consisted  in  marrying  the  at- 
tractive portress,  and  tripling  his  capi- 
tal. Now  the  sight  of  the  little  tailor 
swallowing  his  barley-water  had  sug- 
gested to  Remonencq  the  idea  of  con- 
verting the  indisposition  of  his  rival  into 
a  mortal  malady' .  His  trade  as  an  old- 
iron  dealer  supplied  him  with  the  means. 

One  morning  as,  with  liis  back  leaning 
against  the  jamb  of  his  shop-door,  he  was 
smoking  his  pipe,  and  dreaming  of  that 
splendid  shop  on  the  Boulevard  de  la  Ma- 
deleine, wherein  Madame  Cibot  was  to 
queen  it  in  gorgeous  attice,  Remonencq's 
eyes  fell  upon  a  copper  nuidle  verj-  much 
oxidized.    The  idea  of  economically  cleans- 


168 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


in,g-  this  rundlc  in  Cibot's  barley-water 
suddenly  flashed  across  his  mind  ;  so  hav- 
ing tied  a  small  piece  of  pack-thread  to 
this  bit  of  copper — (which  was  about  as 
large  as  a  crown-piece) — he,  every  daj% 
while  Dame  Cibot  was  engaged  in  attend- 
ing to  her  two  gentlemen,  went  to  the 
lodge  to  inquire  how  his  friend  the  tailor 
was  getting  on ;  and  during  this  visit, 
which  lasted  several  minutes,  gave  the 
copper  rundle  a  bath ;  and  when  he  went 
away,  drew  it  out  of  the  barley-water  by 
means  of  the  pack-thread.  This  slight 
admixture  of  oxidized  copper  (commonly 
called  verdigi'is)  secretly  introduced  a 
deleterious  element  into  the  health-con- 
ferring barley-water.  The  proportions  of 
the  dose  were  homeopathic  it  is  true ;  but 
its  ravages  were  incalculable.  The  I'e- 
sults  of  this  felonious  homeopathj^  were 
these  :  upon  the  third  day  poor  Cibot's 
hair  began  to  fall  off,  his  teeth  began  to 
tremble  in  their  sockets,  and  the  whole 
economy  of  his  s\'stem  was  deranged  by 
these  imperceptible  doses  of  poison. 

Doctor  Poulain  noticed  the  effects  of 
this  decoction,  and  racked  his  brains  in 
the  endeavor  to  detect  their  cause  ;  for  he 
was  sufficiently  skillful  to  recognize  the 
fact  that  some  destructive  agent  was  at 
work.  Clandestinely  removing  the  re- 
mainder of  the  barley-water,  he  analyzed 
it  himself;  but  he  found  no  foreign  sub- 
stance in  it,  for  as  chance  would  have  it, 
Remonencq,  scared  by  the  results  of  his 
handiwork,  had  refrained  on  that'  par- 
ticular day  from  introducing  the  fatal 
rundle  into  the  barley-water.  Dr.  Pou- 
lain satisfied  the  demands  of  his  own  con- 
science, and  of  science,  by  supposing  that, 
in  consequence  of  a  sedentary  life,  passed 
in  a  damp  lodge,  the  blood  of  this  tailoi-, 
squatted  on  a  table  in  front  of  that  grated 
window,  had  grown  thoroughly  impure, 
partly  from  want  of  exercise,  and  partly 
(and  principally')  from  the  inhalation  of 
the  effluvia  of  a  fetid  gutter ;  for  the 
Rue  de  Normandie  is  one  of  those  old 
and  ill  -  paved  streets  into  which  the 
municipal  authorities  of  Paris  have  not, 
as  yet,  introduced  any  pillar-fountains, 
and  in  which  the  refuse  water  of  the 
houses  that  line  the  street  is  suffered  to 


form  a  black  and  sluggish  stream,  and. 
oozing  beneath  the  paving  -  stones,  to 
create  that  kind  of  mud  whick  is  peculiar 
to  Paris. 

As  for  Dame  Cibot,  she  trotted  hither 
and  thither  and  to  and  fro ;  while  her 
husband,  indefatigable  toiler  as  he  was, 
was  always  planted  before  the  window, 
in  one  unvarying  posture,  like  a  fakir. 
Hence  the  knees  of  the  tailor  were  an- 
chylozed  ;  the  blood  had  stagnated  in  the 
bust,  while  the  legs  had  become  so  crooked 
and  shrunken  as  to  be  wellnigh  useless. 

Thus  the  pronounced  copper  color  of 
Cibot's  complexion,  had,  for  a  long  time 
past,  presented  the  appearance  of  natural 
disease.  To  Dr.  Poulain  the  wife's  excel- 
lent health  and  the  illness  of  her  husband 
constituted  the  most  ordinary  phenome- 
non possible. 

"  What  can  be  the  matter  with  my 
poor  Cibot  ?  "  was  the  inquiry  addressed 
by  the  dame  to  Dr.  Poulain. 

"  My  dear  Madame  Cibot,"  replied  the 
doctor,  "your  husband  is  dying  of  the 
porter's  disease :  his  atrophy  shows  an 
incurable  vitiation  of  the  blood." 

A  crime  without  an  object — a  crime  in- 
spired by  no  greed  of  gain,  prompted  by 
no  motive  whatever —  !  These  reflections 
dispelled  the  suspicions  which  had  oi'igi- 
nally  presented  themselves  to  Dr.  Pou- 
lain's  mind.  Who  could  wish  for  Cibot's 
death  ?  His  wife  ?  Why,  the  doctor  had 
seen  her  tastejier  husband's  barley-water 
when  she  sweetened  it.  A  great  many 
crimes  escape  society's  avenging  hand ; 
principally  those  which  resemble  that  of 
Remonencq,  in  being  perpetrated  without 
the  appalling  proofs  supplied  by  acts  of 
violence,  such  as  the  effusion  of  blood, 
strangling,  blows  and  other  clumsy  de- 
vices. In  the  absence  of  these,  and 
where  the  crime  is  without  apparent 
motive,  and  occurs  among  the  lower 
classes,  impunity  is  all  the  more  likely. 

A  crime  is  always  brought  to  light  by 
its  precursors  —  by  open  hate  or  patent 
greed,  known  to  the  persons  beneath 
whose  observation  our  lives  are  passed. 
But  situated  as  were  the  little  tailor,  Re- 
monencq, and  Dame  Cibot,  no  one,  save 
the  doctor,  had  any  interest  in  ferreting 


COUSIN    PONS. 


169 


out  the  cause  of  death.  The  aiUng  gate- 
keeper with  the  coppei'-colored  skin,  who 
had  no  propertj%  and  whose  wife  adored 
him,  was  without  a  foe  as  he  was  without 
a  fortune.  The  motives  by  which  the 
broker  was  actuated,  the  passion  which 
influenced  him  were  (lil<e  the  fortune  of 
Dame  Cibot)  buried  in  obscurity-.  The 
doctor  indeed  thoroughly  understood  the 
portress  and  the  feehngs  by  which  slie 
was  guided  ;  he  believed  her  quite  capable 
of  tormenting  Pons,  but  he  knew  that  it 
was  not  her  interest,  and  that  she  had  not 
sufficient  force  of  character,  to  commit  a 
crime.  Moreover,  she  swallowed  a  spoon- 
ful of  the  barley-water  every  time  that 
she  gave  her  husband  his  dose,  during  the 
doctor's  visits.  Poulain,  therefore,  the 
only  person  who  could  throw  any  light 
upon  the  subject,  beheved  that  the  strange 
symptoms  that  had  attracted  his  notice 
were  due  to  some  accidental  complications, 
to  one  of  those  extraordinary  exceptions 
which  render  medicine  so  perilous  a  call- 
ing. And,  in  fact,  the  state  of  health  of 
the  little  tailor,  cribbed,  cabined,  and  con- 
fined as  he  had  been,  was  so  bad  that  this 
imperceptible  addition  of  oxide  of  copper 
was  enough  to  put  an  end  to  him.  The 
gossips  and  neighbors,  moreover,  acted  in 
such  a  way  as  to  clear  Remonencq  from 
suspicion  ;  thej'  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  this  sudden  death. 

"Ah,"  cried  one,  "I  said  long  since 
that  Monsieur  Cibot  was  not  in  good 
health." 

*•■  He  worked  a  deal  too  much,  did  that 
man  ;  he  overheated  his  blood,"  cried 
another. 

"  He  wouldn't  listen  to  what  I  said  to 
him,"  exclaimed  one  of  the  neighbors. 
"  I  advised  him  to  get  out  on  Sundays, 
and  make  Monday  a  holiday ;  for  two 
holidays  a  week  are  none  too  many 
sure??/." 

In  fact  the  mmor  of  the  Quarter,  which 
is  so  denunciatory,  and  to  which  the  Law 
listens,  through  the  ears  of  the  police- 
officer — that  monarch  of  the  lower  orders 
—gave  a  perfectly  rational  explanation  of 
the  death  of  the  little  tailor.  Neverthe- 
less, the  pensive  look  and  restless  ej-es  of 
Monsieur  Poulain  caused  Remonencq  con- 


siderable embarrassment;  so,  when  he  saw 
the  doctor  drawing  near,  it  was  with  the 
greatest  alacrity  that  he  offered  to  act  as 
Schmucke's  messenger  to  this  Monsieur 
Trognon — whom  Fraisier  knew. 

"I  shall  be  back  again  before  the  will 
is  made,"  whispered  Fraisier  to  Dame 
Cibot.  "Notwithstanding  your  trouble, 
we  must  keep  an  e^'e  on  the  main  chance." 

The  Uttle  solicitor,  who  whisked  away 
with  all  the  lightness  of  a  shadow,  met 
Ills  friend  the  doctor. 

"Well,  Poulain,"  said  he,  "everything 
is  going  on  well.  We  are  safe  !  I  will  tell 
you  hoiv,  this  evening.  Choose  your  post, 
and  you  shall  have  it !  As  for  me,  I  am 
a  juge  de  paix.  Tabareau  won't  withhold 
his  daughter  from  me  now.  As  to  you, 
I  undertake  to  find  a  wife  for  you  in  Made- 
moiselle Vitel,  the  granddaughter  of  our 
juge  de  paix. 

Leaving  Poulain  plunged  in  the  stupe- 
faction resulting  from  this  language  Frai- 
sier bounded,  like  a  ball,  on  to  the  boule- 
vard. Hailing  an  omnibus,  he  found  him- 
self within  ten  minutes  deposited  by  that 
coach  of  modern  times  at  the  top  of  the 
Rue  de  Choiseul.  It  was  about  four 
o'clock,  and  Fraisier  felt  certain  of  find- 
ing Madame  de  Marville  alone;  for  the 
judges  hardly  ever  leave  the  palace  be- 
fore five  o'clock. 

Madame  de  Marville  received  Fraisier 
with  an  amount  of  politeness  which 
showed  that  Monsieur  Leboeuf  had,  in 
accordance  with  the  promise  he  had  made 
to  Madame  Vaiinelle,  given  a  favorable 
report  of  the  quondam  solicitor  of  Mantes. 
Amelie's  manner  to  Fraisier  was  almost 
caressing  (just  as  the  Duchesse  de  Mont- 
pensier's  must  have  been  to  Jacques  Clem- 
ent)— for  the  little  solicitor  was  Madame 
de  MarviUe's  dagger. 

But  when  Fraisier  produced  the  joint 
letter  whereby  Elie  Magus  and  Remo- 
nencq agreed  to  take  the  whole  of  Pons's 
collection  and  to  give  for  it  a  lump  sum 
of  nine  hundred  thousand  francs  in  ready 
money,  Madame  de  JIarville  directed  at 
the  little  law-agent  a  glance  eloquent  of 
that  amount — a  perfect  wave  of  avarice 
that  rolled  to  the  very  feet  of  the  so- 
licitor. 


170 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Monsipur  le  President  has  commis- 
sined  im^  to  invite  j'ou  to  dine  with  us  to- 
morrow/' said  the  ladj- ;  "we  shall  be 
quite  a  family  party  ;  your  fellow-g-uests 
will  be  Monsieur  Godoschal,  the  successor 
of  my  solicitor  Maitre  Desroches;  Ber- 
thier,  our  notary ;  my  daughter,  and  my 
son-in-law.  After  dinner  we — that  is  to 
say,  you,  I,  the  notary  and  the  solicitor — 
will  hold  the  little  conference  which  you 
desired,  and  will  furnish  you  with  the 
necess;uy  powers.  Those  two  g-entlemen 
will  follow  j^our  instructions,  as  you  re- 
quired, and  will  take  care  that  the  whole 
business  is  properly  conducted.  You  will 
receive  Monsieur  de  Marville's  power  of 
attornej-  whenever  you  require  it — " 

"  I  shall  want  it  against  the  day  of  the 
demise." 

"It  shall  be  held  in  readiness." 

"  Madame  la  Presidente,"  said  Fraisier, 
"  if  I  ask  for  a  power  of  attorney,  if  I  de- 
sire that  your  own  solicitor  should  not 
appear  in  this  matter,  'tis  not  so  much 
in  my  own  interests  as  in  yours  that  I 
act  thus.  When  I  devote  myself  to  smy 
one,  I  devote  myself  body  and  soul ;  and 
therefore,  madame,  I  expect,  in  return, 
the  same  loyalty,  the  same  confidejice  at 
the  hands  of  my  patrons — clients  is  a 
word  I  dare  not  use  in  the  case  of  your- 
self and  Monsieur  de  Marville.  You  mig-ht 
imagine  that  in  acting-  as  I  am,  my  ob- 
ject is  to  keep  the  affair  in  my  own  hands ; 
not  so,  madame  ;  but  should  any  repre- 
hensible steps  be  taken  in  the  matter 
(for  where  a  succession  is  in  question, 
one  is  sometimes  tempted  into  g-oing-  a 
little  too  f;ir  —  especially  when  one  is 
drag-ged  on  bj^  a  weight  of  nine  hundred 
thousand  francs) — well,  in  that  case  you 
could  not  disavow  such  a  man  as  Maitre 
Godeschal,  who  is  integ-rity  personified  ; 
but  you  could  throw  the  whole  blame  on  to 
the  shoulders  of  a  paltry  little  law-ag-ent." 

Madame  de  Marville  looked  with  an  eye 
of  admiration  upon  Fraisier. 

"  You  will  rise  very  high,  or  sink  very 
low,"  she  said  to  him.  "Were  I  in  your 
position,  instead  of  looking  out  for  this 
shelf,  the  office  of  juge  de  paix,  I  should 
like  to  be  procurator-royal  at  Mantes ! 
and  go  in  for  a  great  career  !  " 


"Let  me  take  my  own  course,  ma- 
dame !  The  office  of  juge  de  paix  4s  a 
parson's  nag  to  Monsieur  Vitel — to  me  it 
will  be  a  war-horse." 

'Twas  thus  that  Madame  Camusot  was 
induced  to  make  to  Fraisier  this  final 
confidential  communication  : 

"You  seem  to  me,"  said  .she,  "to  be 
so  entirely'  devoted  to  our  interests,  that 
I  am  about  to  initiate  you  into  the  diffi- 
culties of  our  position,  and  into  our  hopes. 
At  the  time  of  the  projected  match  be- 
tween our  daughter  and  a  certain  •adven- 
turer, who  has  since  turned  banker,  the 
president  was  extremely  anxious  to  in- 
crease the  Marville  estate  \>y  purchasing- 
certain  pasture-land  which  was  then  for 
sale.  We  parted  with  this  mag-niflcent 
hotel,  in  order,  as  .you  are  aware,  to  se- 
cure the  marriage  of  our  daughter ;  but, 
she  being  an  only  child,  it  is  my  anxious 
wish  to  acquire  what  is  left  of  these  beau- 
tiful pasture-lands.  They  have  already 
been  sold  in  part ;  they  belong  to  an 
Englishman,  who,  after  having  lived 
upon  the  spot  for  twenty  years,  is  on 
the  point  of  returning  to  England.  He 
built  the  most  charming  cottage  upon  a 
most  delightful  site,  between  the  park 
of  Marville  and  the  meadows,  which  for- 
met'lj'  belonged  to  the  estate ;  and  in 
order  to  form  a  park,  he  bought  up 
coach-houses,  copses,  and '  gardens  at 
fabulous  prices.  This  dwelling-house, 
with  its  appurtenances,  forms  a  feature 
in  the  landscape,  and  it  lies  close  to  the 
walls  of  mj'^  daughter's  park.  One  might 
buy  the  house  and  the  pastures  for  seven 
hundred  thousand  francs;  for  the  net 
rental  of  the  meadows  is  but  twenty 
thousand  francs.  But  if  Mr.  Wadmann 
hears  that  ive  are-  the  purchasers,  he 
will  be  sure  to  want  two  or  three  hun- 
dred thousand  francs  more,  for  he  stands 
to  lose  that  amount  if,  as  is  usual  in  the 
provinces,  the  residence  be  thrown  in — " 

"  Why,  madame,  you  may,  in  my  opin- 
ion, so  fully  count  on  the  succession  being 
yours,  that  I  am  ready  to  play  the  part 
of  purchaser  on  your  behalf,  and  I  under- 
take to  secure  the  estate  for  you,  on  the 
lowest  possible  terms,  \)y  private  con- 
tract,  just  as    if    the    transaction   were 


COUSIN    PONS. 


ITl 


effected  for  a  dealer  in  land.  It  is  in 
that  capacity  that  I  shall  present  myself 
to  the  Eng-lishman.  I  understand  these 
matters.  At  Mantes  the3'  constituted 
my  specialty.  The  returns  of  the  prac- 
tice had  been  doubled  by  Vatinelle,  for  I 
must  tell  you  that  it  was  in  his  name  that 
I  usetl  to  act." 

'•  Hence  your  acquaintanceship  with 
little  Madame  "Vatinelle.  That  notary 
must  be  a  wealthy  man,  by  this  time." 

"Yes,  but  Madame  "Vatinelle  is  very 
extravag-ant.  Well,  you  may  dismiss  all 
anxiet}',  madame  ;  I  will  serve  you  up  the 
Englishman,  done  to  a  turn." 

"  If  you  could  bring'  about  that  result, 
you  would  have  an  eternal  claim  upon 
my  gratitude.  Good-by,  dear  Monsieur 
Fraisier,  until  to-morrow." 

Fraisier's  parting  bow  to  Madame  de 
Marville  was  not  so  servile  as  it  had  been 
on  the  previous  occasion. 

''■  So,  to-morrow  I  am  going  to  dine  with 
the  President  de  Marville,"  said  Fraisier 
to  himself.  "  Come,  I  have  these  folks  in 
my  clutches.  Only,  in  order  to  be  com- 
pletely master  of  the  situation,  I  ought  to 
be  counsel  to  this  German,  in  the  person 
of  Tabareau,  the  bailiff  of  the  jiuje  de 
paix!  This  Tabareau  who  will  not  let 
me  marry  his  daug-hter — an  o\\\y  daughter 
— will  give  her  to  me,  if  I  aui  a  juge  de 
paix.  Mademoiselle  Tabareau,  that  tall 
red-haired  consumptive  girl,  is  the  ownei", 
in  her  mother's  right,  of  a  house  in  the 
Place  Royale ;  that  will  qualify  me  to  be 
a  deputy.  At  her  father's  death,  she  will 
come  in  for  a  good  six  thousand  francs  a 
year,  in  addition.  She  is  not  handsome, 
'tis  true ;  but  good  God  !  when  one  passes 
from  zero  to  an  income  of  eighteen  thou- 
sand francs,  one  must  not  look  too  closely 
at  the  plank  that  carries  one  over  !  " 

And  as  he  threaded  his  way  along  the 
boulevards  to  the  Rue  de  Normandie, 
Fraisier  abandoned  himself  to  the  current 
of  his  golden  dream,  to  the  happy  pros- 
pect of  being  forever  bej'ond  the  reach  of 
want.  He  thought  of  bringing  about  a 
match  between  Mademoiselle  Vitel,  the 
daughter  of  the  juqe  de  paix,  and  his 
friend  Poulain.  He  saw  himself — leagued 
with  his  friend  the  doctor— as  one  of  the 


monai-chs  of  the  Quarter ;  he  would  rule 
the  elections  municipal,  military,  and  po- 
litical. Ah  !  how  short  the  boulevards 
seem  when,  as  we  trot  along  them,  our 
fond  ambition,  mounted  on  fancy's  steed, 
trots  at  our  side  ! 

When  Schmucke  returned  to  the  bed- 
side of  his  friend  he  told  Pons  that  Cibot 
was  dying,  and  that  Remonencq  had  un- 
dertaken to  fetch  Monsieur  Trognon,  the 
notary.  Pons  was  forcibly  impressed  by 
the  mention  of  this  name,  the  name  which 
Cibot  had  so  often  hurled  at  him  in  the 
course  of  her  interminable  harangues  as 
that  of  a  notary  who  was  the  very  incar- 
nation of  integritj\  And  now  the  patient 
(whose  misgivings,  since  the  events  of  the 
morning,  had  become  unqualified)  was 
struck  by  a  brilliant  idea  wliich  put  the 
finishing  touch  to  his  scheme  for  deceiv- 
ing Madame  Cibot,  and  completely  un- 
masking her  to  the  credulous  Schmucke. 

"Schmucke,"  said  he,  taking  the  hand 
of  the  poor  German,  who  was  dazed  hy 
such  an  accumulation  of  news  and  events ; 
"  the  house  must  be  in  a  state  of  complete 
commotion ;  if  the  porter  is  at  the  point 
of  death,  we  are  pretty  well  free  for  some 
moments — that  is  to  say,  free  from  spies; 
for  spied  ^ve  are,  you  may  rely  upon  it !  • 
Go  out,  take  a  cabriolet,  drive  to  the  . 
theater,  and  tell  Mademoisalle  Heloise 
Brisetout,  owr  premiere  danseuse,  that  I 
wjint  to  see  her  before  I  die.  Tell  her  to 
come  here  at  half-past  ten,  when  her  duty 
is  over.  Go  thence  to  your  two  friends 
Schwab  and  Brunner,  and  beg  them  to 
present  themselves  here  at  nine  o'clock 
in  the  naorning,  to  inquire  after,  my 
health — just  as  if  they  were  accidentally 
passing  by — and  to  come  up  and  see  me — " 

Now  the  plan  formed  by  the  old  artist, 
who  felt  that  he  was  dying,  was  this :  He 
wanted  to  make  Schmucke  a  rich  man,  by 
constituting  hira  his  universal  legatee ; 
and,  with  a  view  to  shielding  Schmucke, 
as  far  as  possible,  from  all  trouble  and 
vexation,  Pons  purposed  to  himself  to  dic- 
tate his  will  to  a  notary,  in  the  presence 
of  witnesses,  so  as  to  exclude  the  supposi- 
tion that  he  was  not  of  sound  disposing 
mind,  and  to  deprive  the  Camusots  of  all 
pretext  for  contesting  the  final  disposition 


173 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


of  his  property.  This  name,  Trognon, 
sug-g-ested  to  him  that  there  was  some 
machination  on  foot;  he  believed  in  the 
existence  of  some  scheme  for  introducing 
into  the  will  some  formal  defect,  of  some 
premeditated  act  of  treachery  on  the  part 
of  Madame  Cihot ;  so  he  resolved  to  em- 
ploy this  Trognon  to  dictate  to  him  a 
holograph  will,  which  he  would  seal  and 
lock  up  in  one  of  the  drawers  of  his  com- 
mode. 

Pons's  idea  was  to  get  Schmucke  to 
secrete  himself  in  one  of  the  closets  of 
the  alcove,  whence  he  might  see  Dame 
Cibot  pouncing  on  the  will,  breaking  its 
seal,  reading  and  resealing  it.  Then,  at 
nine  o'clock  on  the  following  morning,  he 
intended  to  revoke  and  annul  the  holo- 
graph will,  by  means  of  a  strictly  formal 
and  indisputable  testament,  rriade  in  the 
presence  of  a  notary.  When  Dame  Cibot 
treated  him  as  a  lunatic  and  visionary,  he 
read,  in  this  her  conduct,  the  vicarious 
hatred,  vengeance,  and  greed  of  Madame 
Camusot ;  for,  stretched  on  a  bed  of  sick- 
ness, as  the  poor  man  had  been  for  two 
long  months,  he  had  beguiled  his  tedious 
hours  of  solitude  and  sleeplessness  by 
sifting,  so  to  speak,  the  events  of  his 
life  with  the  riddle  of  7-eflection. 

It  has  been  a  common  practice  with 
sculptors,  both  ancient  and  modern,  to 
place  on  either  side  of  the  tomb  a  genius 
holding  a  kindled  torch.  These  torolies, 
while  they  illumine  the  path  of  death,  ex- 
hibit to  the  eyes  of  the  dying  the  picture 
of  their  sins  and  errors  in  its  proper  light. 
'Tis  a  grand  idea  that  sculpture  thus  em- 
bodies ;  it  forumlates  a  phenomenon  of 
human  life.  The  death-bed  has  a  wisdom 
of  its  own.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  ob- 
servation that,  stretched  on  that  couch, 
artless  girls  of  the  most  tender  age  will 
display  the  sapience  of  the  centenarian, 
develop  the  gift  of  prophecj',  pass  judg- 
ment on  the  members  of  their  families, 
and  read  the  hearts  of  the  most  accom- 
plished hypocrites.  This  is  the  poetry  of 
Death. 

But — strange  it  is  and  well  worthy  of 
remark^there  are  two  ways  of  dying. 
This  poetic  vaticination,  this  power  of 
looking  forward  into  the  future,  or  back- 


ward into  the  past,  is  strictlj'  confined  to 
invalids  whose  bodily  organs  only  are  at- 
tacked ;  to  those  who  perish  through  the 
destruction  of  such  portions  of  the  system 
as  subserve  the  material  processes  of  life 
exclusively.  Thus,  persons  attacked  by 
gangrene  (as  Louis  Quatorze  was),  con- 
sumptive patients,  persons  who,  IDce  Pons, 
die  fi^om  fever,  or,  like  Madame  de  Mort- 
sauf,  from  inflammation  of  the  stomach  ; 
those  who,  like  soldiers,  are  cut  off  by 
wounds  in  the  full  tide  of  life  and  health  ; 
all  these  enjoy,  to  the  very  last,  a  sublime 
lucidity  of  mind  ;  the  manner  of  their 
deaths  fills  us  with  astonishment  and 
admiration. 

Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  perish 
from  diseases  that  may  be  termed  intel- 
lectual, whose  maladies  are  seated  in  the 
brain,  in  that  nervous  apparatus  which 
serves  to  convey  the  fuel  of  thought  from 
the  bodjr  to  the  mind  ;  these  persons  die 
altogether ;  their  minds  and  bodies  foun- 
der side  by  side.  The  former  (souls  unen- 
cumbered by  substance)  bring  before  our 
very  eyes  the  specters  that  we  read  of  in 
the  Bible ;  the  latter  are  mere  corpses. 
Pons,  who  had  never  known  a  woman's 
love — Pons,  that  epicure-Cato,  that  just 
man  almost  made  perfect,  now  at  last  saw 
through  and  through  the  heart  of  Ma- 
dame Camusot,  and  found  it  made  of  cells 
of  gall ;  he  came  to  understand  the  world 
just  as  he  was  upon  the  very  point  of 
quitting  it. 

Accordingly,  like  the  light-hearted  ar- 
tist he  was,  finding  food  for  mirth  and 
mockery  in  all  that  happens.  Pons  had, 
during  the  last  few  hours,  cheerfully  se- 
lected the  part  he  was  to  play.  The  last 
ties  that  bound  him  to  existence — the 
chains  of  admiration,  the  potent  fetters 
that  linked  the  connoisseur  to.  the  master- 
pieces of  art — had  been  broken  on  that 
very  morning.  When  Pons  found  that 
Dame  Cibot  had  robbed  him,  he  had  re- 
nounced, in  a  spirit  of  Christian  resigna- 
tion, the  pomps  and  vanities  of  art,  and 
bidden  a  long  farewell  to  his  collection 
and  to  his  friendships  with  the  creators 
of  so  many  beautiful  works.  After  the 
fashion  of  our  ancestors,  who  reckoned 
death  among  the  festivals  of  the  Chris- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


173 


tian,  Pons  wished  to  think  exclusively  of 
his  approaching  end.  In  his  love  for 
Schuiucke,  he  desired  to  extend  his  protec- 
tion to  the  poor  old  German,  even  from 
the  grave.  It  was  this  fatherly  idea  that 
led  Pons  to  select  the  premiere  danseuse 
of  his  theater,  as  an  ally  in  his  struggle 
with  the  traitors  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded, traitors  who  would  assuredlj^ 
show  no  mercy  to  his  universal  legatee. 

Heloise  Brisetout  was  endowed  with 
one  of  those  natures  which  remain  true, 
even  when  placed  in  a  false  position.  She 
belonged  to  the  school  of  Jennj'  Cadine 
and  of  Josepha,  and  would  have  played 
her  tributary  admirers  any  trick ;  but,  as 
a  comrade,  she  was  stanch  and  leal,  and 
she  stood  in  awe  of  no  human  power  or 
authority  whatever  ;  for  the  weakness  of 
then*,  one  and  all,  experience  had  revealed 
to  her,  schooled  as  she  had  been  by  her 
encounters  with  police  constables  at  the 
singidarly  wnrural  Bal  Mabille,  and  dur- 
ing the  Carnival. 

''If  she  has  thrust  her  protege,  Ga- 
rangeot,  into  my  place,  she  will,  for  that 
very  reason,  feel  all  the  more  bound  to 
serve  rae."  Such  was  Pons's  unspoken 
reflection. 

Amid  the  turmoil  that  reigned  in  the 
porter's  lodge  it  was  easy  for  Schmucke 
to  pass  out  unobserved.  He  returned 
with  the  utmost  celeritj',  as  he  did  not 
like  to  leave  Pons  long  alone.  Just  as 
Schmucke  came  back.  Monsieur  Trognon 
arrived  to  make  the  will ;  and,  although 
Cibot  was  in  the  throes  of  death,  his  wife 
accompanied  the  notary  and  ushered  him 
into  the  bedroom.  She  then  retired  of  her 
own  accord,  leaving  Schmucke,  Monsieur 
Trognon  and  Pons  together  ;  but  arming 
herself  with  a  small  hand-glass  of  curious 
workmanship,  she  ensconced  herself  near 
the  door,  which  she  left  ajar.  Thus  she 
was  so  placed  as  to  be  able  not  only  to 
hear  what  was  said  but  to  see  all  that  oc- 
curred at  this  extremely  critical  moment. 

'•Monsieur."  said  Pons,  "  I  am  in  full 
possession  of  all  my  faculties  —  unfort- 
unately for  me,  for  I  feel  that  I  am 
dj-ing,  and— such,  doubtless,  is  the  will 
of  God— not  one  of  tiie  pangs  of  death  is 
spared  me!  This  is  Monsieur  Schmucke—" 


The  notary  bowed  to  Schmucke. 

"  He  is  the  only  friend  I  have  on 
earth,"  continued  Pons,  "and  I  wish  to 
make  him  my  universal  legatee.  Tell  me 
in  what  form  my  will  should  be  made,  in 
order  that  my  friend  (who  is  a  German 
and  entirely  ignorant  of  our  laws)  may 
inherit  my  fortune,  without  being  exposed 
to  any  litigation." 

"Everything  may  be  litigated,  mon- 
sieur," said  the  notary.  "  That  is  the 
drawback  to  all  human  laws.  But  in 
the  matter  of  wills,  there  is  one  which 
cannot  be  disputed — " 

"  Which  is  that  ?  "  inquired  Pons. 

"A  will  made  before  a  notary-,  in  the 
presence  of  witnesses  who  certify  that 
the  testator  is  in  full  possession  of  all 
his  faculties,  the  testator  having  neither 
wife  nor  children  nor  father  nor  brother — " 

"  I  have  none  of  those  ties ;  all  my  affec- 
tions are  concentrated  upon  my  dear  friend 
Schmucke,  here — " 

Schmucke  was  weeping. 

"  Well  then,  since  the  law  allows  you, 
if  you  have  none  but  remote  collateral 
relatives,  freely  to  dispose  of  your  estate, 
Subject  to  the  dictates  of  morality — for 
you  must  have  seen  wills  impugned  on 
the  score  of  the  testator's  eccentricity — 
a  will  made  before  a  notary  is  indisput- 
able. There,  the  identity  of  the  testator 
cannot  be  denied,  the  notary  has  estab- 
lished his  sanity,  and  the  signature  is 
beyond  dispute.  A  holograph  will,  how- 
ever, if  formal  and  clearly  expressed,  is 
tolerably'  safe." 

"  For  reasons  known  to  myself,  I  decide 
in  favor  of  a  holograph  will,  to  be  written 
by  me  at  your  dictation,  and  placed  in  the 
custody  of  m^-^  friend  here.  Can  that  be 
done  ?  " 

"Unquestionably,"  said  the  notary. 
"  Will  you  write  while  I  dictate  ?  " 

"Schmucke,'"  said  Pons,  "give  me  my 
little  buhl  inkstand.  Dictate  in  an  under- 
tone, monsieur ;  for,"  added  he,  ••  we  may 
be  overheard." 

"  Tell  me,  then,  in  the  first  place,  what 
are  your  intentions,"  said  the  notary. 

After  the  lapse  of  ton  minutes.  Dame 
Cibot  (whom  Pons  was  watching  in  a 
mirror)  saw  the  testament  sealed  after  it 


174 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


had  been  examined  by  the  notary',  while 
Schmucke  was  lighting  a  candle.  Pons 
then  handed  the  will  to  Schmucke,  telling 
him  to  lock  it  up  in  a  secret  drawer  in 
Pons's  writing-desk.  The  testator  then 
called  for  the  kc^'  of  the  writing-desk, 
and  tjing  it  in  the  corner  of  his  handker- 
chief, put  the  handkerchief  under  his  pil- 
low. Thereupon  the  notary,  whom  Pons 
had,  out  of  politeness,  appointed  executor, 
and  to  whom  he  had  bequeathed  a  valua- 
ble picture  (one  of  those  legacies  which 
the  law  permits  a  notary  to  accept),  left 
the  room  and  found  Madame  Cibot  in  the 
salon. 

"  Well,  monsieur !  and  has  Monsieur 
Pons  remembered  me?" 

"Surely,  my  dear,  you  don't  expect  a 
notary  to  betray  the  secrets  confided  to 
him,"  replied  M.  Trognon.  "All  that  I 
can  tell  you  is  that  a  good  many  avari- 
cious folks  will  be  disappointed  and  a  good 
many  expectations  defeated.  Monsieur 
Pons  has  made  an  excellent  Avill,  a  most 
sensible  will,  a  patriotic  will,  that  has  ray 
warmest  approbation." 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  imagine  the 
pitch  of  curiositj'  at  which  Madame  Cibot, 
stimulated  by  these  words,  had  now  ar- 
rived. She  went  down  to  the  lodge  and 
spent  the  night  at  Cibot's  bedside ;  her 
intention  being  to  get  Mademoiselle  Re- 
monencq  to  relieve  her  between  two  and 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  she 
herself  would  go  upstairs  and  read  the 
will. 


XXV. 


THE  SHAM  WILL. 

The  visit  of  Mademoiselle  Heloise  Brise- 
tout  at  half -past  ten  in  the  evening  seemed 
to  Dame  Cibot  to  be  quite  in  the  ordinar.y 
course  of  events ;  but  she  was  so  direly 
afraid  of  the  clanseuse  mentioning  the 
thousand  francs  which  Gaudissard  had 
placed  in  her  maternal  hands  that  as  she 
conducted  the  first  lady  of  the  ballet  to 
Pons's  apartments,  she  overwhelmed  her 
on  the  wa\'  wnth  attentions  and  flatteiy 
meet  for  a  queen. 


"Ah,  my  dear!  "  said  Heloise,  as  she 
mounted  the  stairs,  "  I  assure  you  that 
you  are  far  more  attractive  on  j-our  own 
ground  than  at  the  theater.  I  do  conjure 
3'ou  to  stick  to  your  vocation." 

Heloise  had  driven  to  the  Rue  de  Nor- 
mandie  under  the  escort  of  Bixion,  her 
sweetheart,  and  was  most  magnificently 
dressed  ;  for  she  was  on  her  way  to  an 
evening  party  at  the  house  of  Mariette, 
one  of  the  most  illustrious  premieres  dan- 
seuses  of  the  opera.  Indeed,  Monsieur 
Chapoulot,  a  retired  lace  manufiicturer 
of  the  Rue  St.  Denis  (who  occupied  the 
first  floor,  and  was  just  returning  with 
his  daughter  from  the  Ambigu  Comique) 
and  Madame  Chapoulot  were  alike  amazed 
at  beholding"  so  gorgeous  a  toilet  and  so 
beautiful  a  creature  upon  their  staircase. 

"Who  is  she,  Madame  Cibot?"  in- 
quired Madame  Chapoulot. 

"  Oh,  a  good-for-nothing  creature  !  a 
mere  jumper,  that  folks  may  see,  half- 
naked,  anj^  evening  for  fortj'  sous,"  re- 
plied the  portress  in  a  whisper. 

"  Victorine,  my  darling,"  said  Madame 
Chapoulot  to  her  daughter,  "make  room 
for  the  lady  to  pass." 

This  cry  of  maternal  alarm  did  not 
escape  the  ear  of  Heloise.  She  turned 
round  and  said  to  the  lady  : 

"Your  daughter,  madame,  must  sureh' 
be  worse  than  tinder,  since  you  are  afraid 
she  may  catch  fire  bj'  merely  touching 
me." 

Heloise  looked  pleasantly  at  Monsieur 
Chapoulot,  and  smiled. 

"Well,  I  must  say  that  she  is  very 
pretty  off  the  stage,"  said  that  gentle- 
man, wiio  showed  no  inclination  to  quit 
the  landing ;  but  Madame  Chapoulot 
pinched  her  husband  hard  enough  to 
make  him  cry  out,  and  pushed  him  into 
their  apartments. 

"Here  is  a  second  floor  which  has 
usurped  the  appearance  of  being  a 
fourth  floor,"  said  Heloise. 

"Ah,  but  then  mademoiselle  is  accus- 
tomed to  I'ising,"  said  Dame  Cibot,  as 
she  opened  the  door  of  Pons's  rooms. 

"Well,  old  fellow,"  said  Heloise,  as 
she  entered  the  bedroom,  and  saw  the 
poor  musician  lying  stretched  out  at  full 


COUSIN    POXS. 


175 


length,  pale,  and  with  shrunken  features, 
"  you're  not  so  well  as  you  should  bo  then  ? 
Everybody'  at  the  theater  is  anxious  about 
you ;  but  you  know  what  life  is  !  How- 
ever good-hearted  one  may  be,  every  one 
has  business  of  some  sort  to  attend  to, 
and  one  cannot  find  a  spare  hour  for  look- 
ing up  one's  friends.  Gaudissard  talks 
about  coming  here  every  day,  and  then, 
morning  after  morning,  he  is  driven  to 
his  wits'  end  by  his  managerial  duties. 
Nevertheless,  we  are  all  fond  of  you." 

"Madame  Cibot,"  said  the  sufferer, 
"  do  me  tlie  favor  to  leave  mademoiselle 
and  us  alone  together  ;  we  have  to  talk 
about  theatrical  matters  and  about  my 
post  of  conductor — Schnmcke  will  be  good 
enough  to  see  madame  to  her  carriage." 

At  a  sign  from  Pons,  Schmucke  led 
Madame  Cibot  to  the  door  and  bolted  it 
behind  her. 

"  Ah  !  the  scoundrel  of  a  German  ;  he 
too  is  getting  spoiled, ' '  quoth  Dame  Cibot 
to  herself,  when  she  heard  the  significant 
sound  of  the  drawn  bolts.  "It's  Mon- 
sieur Pons  what  sets  him  on  to  do  these 
horrid  things.  But  you  shall  pay  me  for 
it,  my  little  friends,"  said  she  to  herself 
as  she  descended  the  stairs.  "  Bah  !  if 
this  mountebank  of  a  dancer  mentions 
the  thousand  francs,  I'll  tell  the  old  boys 
it's  nothing  but  an  actor's  joke." 

And  so  sajang,  she  resumed  her  seat 
near  the  pillow  of  poor  Cibot,  who  was 
complaining  that  his  stomach  was  on 
fire  ;  for  Remonencq  had  just  been  giv- 
ing him  a  draught  during  his  wife's 
absence. 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  Pons  to  the  dan- 
seuse,  while  Schmucke  was  engaged  in 
dismissing  Dame  Cibot,  •'  I  trust  en- 
tirely to  you  to  choose  me  an  honest 
notary-,  who  will  come  here  at  half-past 
nine  to-morrow  morning  to  receive  my 
will.  I  want  to  leave  mj'  whole  fortune 
to  my  friend  Schmucke.  Should  he  be 
tormented  by  any  one  'tis  on  this  notary 
that  1  reckon  to  advise  and  to  defend  him. 
That  is  why  I  desire  to  have  a  notary  of 
high  reputation  and  great  wealth — one 
who  is  altogether  above  the  temptations 
which  sometimes  seduce  the  legal  practi- 
tioner from  the  right  path ;   for  in  this 


notary,  my  poor  legatee  must  find  a  prop 
to  lean  upon.  I  distrust  Berthier,  Car- 
dot's  successor,  and  you  who  know  so 
many  people — " 

"Ah,  I  have  it!  "  said  the  danseuse. 
"  The  man  you  want  is  Leopold  Hanne- 
quin,  notary  to  Florine  and  the  Comtesse 
de  Bruel — a  virtuous  man  who  doesn't 
know  what  a  lorette  is.  He's  a  sort  of 
second-hand  father,  a  worthy  man  who 
saves  one  from  playing  Old  Harry  with 
the  money  one  gets.  I  call  him  the  father 
of  the  rats,  for  he  has  imbued  all  my 
friends  with  principles  of  economy.  To 
begin  with,  he  has  an  income  of  sixty 
thousand  francs  indepetidently  of  his  pro- 
fession, my  dear  fellow.  Then,  he  ia 
a  notary  of  the  old  school.  He  is  a 
notary  when  he  walks  and  when  he 
sleeps;  all  his  children  must  needs  he 
little  notaries  and  notaresses  born.  In 
short,  he's  a  dull,  heavy,  pedantic  man ; 
but — he's  a  man  whom  no  earthly  power 
can  bend  when  he  is  in  the  exercise  of  his 
functions.  He  never  kept  a  mistress  ;  he 
is  a  fossil  paterfamilias,  and  his  wife  wor- 
ships him  and  is  true  to  him,  although  she 
is  a  notary's  wife.  What  can  you  have 
more  ?  There's  nothing  better  to  be  had 
in  Paris — in  the  way  of  notaries.  He  is  pa- 
triarchal, 'tis  true  ;  he's  not  at  all  absurd 
and  amusing,  as  Cardot  used  to  be  with 
Malaga  ;  but  then  he  will  never  give  his 
creditors  the  slip  like  that  little  thing- 
a-bob  who  lived  with  Antonia.  I  will 
send  him  here  to-morrow  morning  at 
eight  o'clock,  so  jo\x  may  sleep  in  peace. 
In  the  first  place,  I  hope  you'll  get  well, 
and  write  some  more  pretty  music  for 
us;  but,  after  all,  life's  a  sad  business 
in  these  days  when  contractoi-s  haggle 
and  kings  play  for  pence  and  ministers 
pilfer  and  rich  folks  go  in  for  cheese-par- 
ing. Artists  too  have  none  of  this  left," 
said  she,  clapping  her  hand  to  her  heart ; 
"  it  is  high  time  to  die — good-by,  old  man!" 

"  Above  and  beyond  all,  Heloise,  I  beg 
you  to  maintain  the  strictest  secrecj-." 

"  This  isn't  a  matter  that  relates  to  the 
theater !  'Tis  a  thing  that  is  sacred  to 
an  artist,"  said  she. 

"Who  is  your  present  protector,  child?  " 
asked  Pons. 


176 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  The  mayor  of  your  arrondissement, 
Monsieur  P>aiido\-er,  wlio  is  every  whit  as 
stupid  as  Crevel  deceased;  for  I  suppose 
you  are  aware  that  Crevel,  one  of  Gaudis- 
sard's  former  partners,  died  a  few  days 
since,  and  hasn't  left  me  a  fraction — no, 
not  even  so  much  as  a  pot  of  pomatum ! 
That's  what  causes  me  to  say  that  the 
times  wo  live  in  are  diss-usting." 

"And  what  did  he  die  of  ?  " 

"  Of  his  wife — !  If  he  had  stuck  to  me, 
he  would  have  been  alive  now.  Good-h^', 
my  dear  old  fellow  !  I  talk  to  you  about 
kicking'  the  bucket,  because  I  can  see 
that,  in  a  fortnight's  time,  we  shall  have 
you  trotting  along  the  boulevards,  and 
smelling  out  your  pretty  little  curiosities 
once  more ;  for  you're  not  ill,  your  eA'es 
are  brighter  now  than  I  ever  knew  them." 

And  off  went  the  premiere  danseuse, 
fully  convinced  that  her  protege,  Garan- 
geot,  was  permanently  installed  in  the 
post  of  leader  of  the  orchestra.  Garan- 
g'eot  was  her  cousin-german. 

Every  door  was  ajar,  and  every  family 
was  on  the  alert  as  the  premiei'e  danseuse 
went  downstairs.  Her  visit  was  quite  an 
event  in  that  house. 

Like  a  bull-dog  which  never  lets  go  a 
bit  of  meat  into  which  he  has  once  set 
his  teeth,  Fraisier  was  stationed  in  the 
lodge,  cheek  hj  jowl  with  Madame  Cibot, 
when  the  ballet-dancer  passed  under  the 
entrance  gateway  and  called  for  the  door 
to  be  opened.  He  knew  that  the  will  had 
been  made ;  he  had  just  been  gauging 
Dame  Cibot's  mental  condition ;  for  Mai- 
tre  Trognon,  the  notary,  had  been  as  reti- 
cent about  the  will  to  Fraisier  as  he  had 
been  to  Madame  Cibot.  It  was  quite  nat- 
ural that  the  man  of  law  should  observe 
the  danseuse  as  she  passed  out ;  and  he 
secretly  resolved  to  turn  to  good  account 
this  visit  in  extremis. 

"My  dear  Madame  Cibot,"  said  Frai- 
sier ;  "  this  is  for  you  the  critical  mo- 
ment." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  she,  "my  poor  dear 
Cibot!  To  think  that  he'll  not  live  to 
enjoy  whatever  I  may  come  in  for!" 

"The  thing  is  to  find  out  whether  Mon- 
sieur Pons  has  left  yo\x  anything;  whether, 
in  fact,  your  name  is  mentioned  in  the  will 


or  whether  you  have  been  forgotten,"  con- 
tinued Fraisier.  "  I  represent  the  natural 
heirs  of  the  testator,  and,  in  any  case,  it 
is  only  through  tliem  that  you  will  get 
a  single  farthing ;  for  the  will  is  a  holo- 
graph, and  is,  consequently,  anything 
but  indisputable.  Do  you  happen  to 
know  where  our  patient  has  put  it?" 

"  Yes ;  in  a  secret  drawer  of  his  writ- 
ing-desk, and  he's  taken  the  key  of  it, 
and  he's  tied  it  up  in  the  corner  of  his 
handkerchief,  and  he's  been  and  stuck 
the  handkerchief  under  his  pillow.  I  saw 
the  whole  thing." 

"  Is  the  will  sealed  up  ?  " 

"Alas,  yes." 

"To  obtain  possession  of  a  will  sur- 
reptitiously and  to  suppress  it  is  a  crime; 
but  to  take  a  peep  at  it  is  onh'  a  delict ; 
and  in  anj'  case  what  does  it  amount  to  ? 
a  peccadillo  which  no  one  can  swear  to  ! 
Is  our  friend  a  heavj'  sleeper  ?  " 

"He  is;  but  when  you  wanted  to  have 
a  good  look  at  his  collection  and  value  the 
lot,  he  must  have  been  sleeping  as  sound 
as  a  top,  and  yet  he  awoke.  Howsomevcr, 
I'll  see  what  can  be  done.  This  morning 
I'll  go  n'up  to  relieve  Monsieur  Schmucke- 
at  four  o'clock,  and  if  you'll  come  you  can 
have  ten  minutes  to  look  at  the  will — " 

"Well,  that's  settled,  then;  I  will  get 
up  at  four  o'clock,  and  I'll  knock  gent- 

ly-" 

"  Mademoiselle  Remonencq,  who'll  take 
my  place  near  Cibot,  will  know  who  it  is, 
and  will  pull  the  door-string  :  but  rap  at 
the  window  so  as  not  to  wake  anj'  one." 

"Agreed,"  said  Fraisier;  "you  will 
have  a  light,  won't  you  ?  a  candle  will  be 
quite  enough." 

At  midnight  the  poor  old  German,  seat- 
ed in  an  armchair  and  almost  broken- 
hearted, was  watching  Pons,  whose  feat- 
ures, contracted  like  those  of  a  djang  man, 
wore  an  expression  of  exhaustion  so  in- 
tense that  he  seemed  to  be  on  the  verj' 
verge  of  dissolution. 

"  I  think  that  I  have  just  sufficient 
strength  to  last  till  to-morrow  evening," 
said  the  sufferer,  philosophically'.  "  My 
death  -  struggle  will  come,  my  dear 
Schmucke,  to  -  morrow  night,  no  doubt. 
So  soon  as  the  notary  and  your  two  friends 


COUSIN    PONS. 


i  1 1 


have  left  me,  you  will  go  and  fetch  our 
good  Abbe  Duplanty,  the  curate  of  Saint 
Francis.  Tiie  worthy  man  does  not  know 
that  I  am  ill ;  and  I  should  like  to  receive 
the  holy  sacraments  to-morrow  at  mid- 
day." 

After  along  pause  Pons  resumed?  "God 
has  not  seen  fit  that  my  life  should  be 
what  I  had  dreamed  it  might  be.  I  should 
have  been  so  fond  of  my  wife,  mj- children, 
my  family — if  I  had  had  them !  To  be 
loved  and  cherished  by  a  few  beings,  in 
some  quiet  nook — that  was  my  sole  am- 
bition !  Life  is  bitter  to  every  one  ;  for  I 
have  seen  people  b'essed  with  all  that  I 
have  vainly  longed  for,  and  yet  not  happy. 
Toward  the  close  of  my  career,  the  good 
God  bestowed  upon  me  the  unexpected 
consolation  of  meeting  with  such  a  friend 
as  you  ;  and  indeed,  mj'  dear  Schmucke, 
I  cannot  reproach  myself  with  having  mis- 
understood or  undervalued  you ;  I  have 
given  you  my  heart  and  all  the  affection 
that  was  at  my  command.  No,  Schmucke, 
do  not  weep,  or  I  must  hold  mj^  tongue  ; 
and  it  is  so  sweet  to  me  to  talk  to  you 
about  ourselves.  Had  I  attended  to  what 
you  said  to  me,  I  should  have  Uved ;  I 
should  have  quitted  the  world  and  my  old 
habits  of  life,  and  should  have  escaped  the 
mortal  wounds  I  have  received.  Now,  I 
wish  to  think  of  you  exclusively — " 

"You  are  wrong — " 

"Do  not  gainsa.y  me,  but  listen  to  me, 
dear  friend.  You  are  as  simple  and  as 
candid  :is  a  child  of  six  years  old  that  has 
never  left  its  mother's  side — 'tis  a  frame 
of  mind  that  is  worth3'^  of  all  respect ;  it 
seems  to  me  that  God  Himself  should 
take  charge  of  beings  such  as  30U  are. 
But  still  men  are  so  wicked  that  it  is  mj^ 
duty  to  put  you  on  your  guard  against 
them.  You  are,  therefore,  on  the  point 
of  losing  your  noble  ti-ustfulness,  your 
sacred  unsuspectingness — that  ornament 
of  the  pure  in  heart  which  is  given  only 
to  genius,  and  to  beings  like  yourself. 
You  are  shortly  about  to  see  Madame 
Cibot  (who  was  watching  us  closely 
through  the  half-open  door)  come  and 
take  this  pretended  will.  I  presume  that 
the  wretch  will  undertake  this  expedition 
this  morning  when  she   thinks   you  are 


asleep.  Now,  mark  well  what  I  say,  and 
follow  my  instructions  to  the  very  letter. 
Do  you  hear  me?  "  asked  the  sick  man. 

Overwhelmed  with  grief  and  seized 
with  a  fearful  palpitation  of  the  heart, 
Schmucke  had  allowed  his  head  to  sink 
upon  the  back  of  his  armchair,  and 
seemed  to  have  fainted. 

"  Yez,"  said  the  German,  bowed  down 
beneath  the  weight  of  his  sorrow  ;  "yez, 
I  hear  what  you  saj-.  But  it  is  az  if  you 
were  two  hundred  yards  away  from  me — 
it  zeems  az  if  I  were  going  wid  you  into 
de  grave." 

He  drew  near  to  Pons,  and  taking  his 
hand  and  clasping  it  between  his  own 
hands,  breathed  to  himself  a  fervent 
prayer. 

"What  are  you  muttering  there  in 
German  ?  "  » 

"I  was  braying  to  God  to  take  us  to 
Himself  togeder,"  replied  Schmucke  sim- 
])\y,  when  his  prayer  was  ended. 

With  great  difficulty  (for  he  was  suffer- 
ing fearful  pains  in  the  liver)  Pons  man- 
aged to  stoop  low  enough  to  imprint  a 
kiss  upon  Schmuckc's  forehead.  In  that 
kiss  Pons  poured  forth  his  whole  soul  in  a 
blessing  upon  that  being  who  in  heart  and 
mind  resembled  the  Lamb  that  reposes  at 
the  feet  of  God. 

"Now  listen  to  me,  my  good  Schmucke  ; 
dying  men  must  be  obej-ed — " 

"  I  am  liztening." 

"The  communication  between  your 
rooms  and  mine  is  through  a  little  door 
in  j-our  alcove,  opening  into  one  of  the 
closets  of  my  alcove." 

"Yez,  but  de  clozet  is  grammed  with 
hictures." 

"  Go  and  clear  the  door  at  once,  and 
make  as  little  noise  as  possible." 

"Yes,"  said  Schmucke. 

"Clear  the  passage  at  each  end,  both 
your  end  and  mine  ;  then  leave  your  door 
ajar.  When  Dame  Cibot  comes  to  re- 
lieve guard  at  my  bedside — she  m.iy  ver\- 
likely  come  an  hour  earlier  tlian  usual 
this  morning — ^go  awaj'  to  bed  as  usual, 
and  seem  to  be  very  tired.  Try  to  look 
sleepy.  As  soon  as  she  has  settled  her- 
self in  her  armchair,  go  through  your  lit- 
tle door  and  remain  on  watch  there;  raise 


178 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  small  muslin  curtain  of  this  glass 
door,  and  narrowly  observe  what  takes 
place.     Do  you  understand  ?  " 

"  Yez,  I  know  what  you  mean  ;  you  be- 
lieve dat  de  wicked  woman  Avill  purn  de 
will—" 

"I  don't  know  what  she  will  do  with 
it,  but  I  am  sure  that  henceforth  you 
won't  take  her  for  an  angel.  Now  play 
me  some  music,  delig-ht  me  with  one  of 
your  improvisations ;  'twill  give  you 
something  to  do,  you  will  get  rid  of  your 
gloomy  ideas,  and  will  fill  the  void  of 
this  sad  night  with  one  of  your  poems — " 

Schmucke  took  his  seat  at  the  piano. 
He  was  now  in  his  element,  and  the  mu- 
sical inspiration  arising  from  the  tremor 
of  his  grief,  aided  bj^  the  excitement  re- 
sulting from  that  grief,  soon  bore  the 
worthy  German  beyond  the  bounds  of 
this  material  world.  The  themes  that  he 
invented  were  sublime,  and  he  adorned 
them  with  capriccios,  executed,  now  with 
all  the  sweetness  and  Raphaelesque  per- 
fection of  Chopin,  now  with  all  the  fire 
and  Dantesquc  majesty  of  Liszt,  the  two 
])(>rformers  Avhose  musical  organization 
most  closely  resembles  that  of  Paganini. 
When  execution  arrives  at  this  degree  of 
faultlessness  the  performer  seems  to  be 
placed  upon  a  level  with  the  poet ;  he  is 
to  the  composer  what  the  actor  is  to  the 
•author — a  divine  translator  of  a  divine 
work.  But  on  this  particular  night,  dur- 
ing which  Schmucke  gave  Pons  a  fore- 
taste of  the  concerts  of  Paradise— of  that 
exquisite  music  which  steals  the  instru- 
ments from  the  grasp  of  Saint  Cecilia 
and  strews  them  on  the  jasper  floor  of 
heaven,  the  old  German  was  both  Bee- 
thoven and  Paganini  —  the  creator  and 
the  inter pi-etcr  both  in  one. 

Inexhaustible  as  the  nightingale,  sub- 
lime as  the  heaven  beneath  which  it 
sings,  various  and  leaf\'  as  the  forest 
wliich  it  fills  witli  its  magic  melodies, 
Schmucke  surpassed  himself  and  plunged 
tlie  old  musician,  who  was  listening  to 
him,  into  the  ecstasj^  which  Raphael  has 
depicted  in  that  painting  which  is  one  of 
the  sights  of  Bologna.  But  this  musi- 
cal poem  was  interrupted  "by  a  frightful 
ringing  of  bells.     The  house-maid  of  the 


first-floor  lodgers  came  up  to  entreat 
Schmucke  to  put  a  stop  to  that  witches' 
Sabbath.  Madame,  Monsieur  and  Made- 
moiselle Chapoulot  were  all  awake  and 
could  not  get  to  sleep  again ;  and  they 
begged  to  say  that  the  day  was  quite 
long  Enough  for  the  rehearsal  of  theat- 
rical music,  and  that  in  a  house  situated  in 
theMarais  it  was  not  proper  to  sirMwi  upon 
the  piano  at  night.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  was  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

At  half-past  three  the  previsions  of 
Pons — who  might  well  have  been  sup- 
posed to  have  overheard  the  conference 
between  Fraisier  and  Dame  Cibot— were 
realized  by  the  entrance  of  the  portress. 
The  patient  directed  at  Schmucke  a 
glance  of  intelligence  which  meant  : 
"Did  I  not  guess  correctly  ?"  and  forth- 
with assumed  the  position  of  one  who  is 
buried  in  the  profoundcst  slumber. 

So  firm  was  Dame  Cibot's  belief  in  the 
simplicity  of  Schmucke  (and  here  by  the 
way  we  may  note  tliat  this  artlessness  is 
one  of  the  greatest  resources,  and  the 
cause  of  the  success  of  the  plots  of  chil- 
dren) that  that  estimable  creature  could 
not  possibly  suspect  his  good  faith,  when 
he  approached  her,  and  said,  with  an  air 
in  which  sorrow  was  blended  with  elation  : 

"He  has  had  a  terriple  night;  he  has 
been  tevilishly  egzited.  I  was  opliged  to 
blay  in  order  to  galm  him,  and  de  lotchers 
on  de  first-floor  zent  up  to  dell  me  to  be 
guiet.  It  is  frightful ;  for  de  life  of  my 
friend  was  at  stake.  I  am  zo  dired  from 
having  blay ed  all  night  long  dat  I  am  dead 
beat  dis  morning." 

"  My  poor  Cibot,  too,  is  very  bad  ;  an- 
other such  day  as  yesterday  and  there  will 
be  no  hopes  of  him.  But  what  can  one  do  ? 
God's  will  be  done  !  " 

"You  are  sudge  an  honest  greature, 
and  have  sudge  a  goot  heart,  dat  if  Fader 
Zibod  dies  I  will  dague  you  to  lifl"  with 
me,"  said  the  artful  Schmucke. 

When  the  artless  and  upright  begin  to 
dissemble  they  are  truly  formidable — as 
formidable  as  children  whose  snares  are 
laid  with  all  the  skill  which  savages  dis- 
play. 

"  Well,  get  you  to  bed  now,  my  little 
man,"  said  Dame  Cibot.     "Your  n'eyes 


COUSIN    PONS. 


179 


are  that  weary  that  they  are  as  big  as  my 

fist.  Ah  !  there  is  but  one  thing'  as  could 
console  me  for  the  loss  of  Citaot,  and  that 
would  be  the  thought  that  I  should  n'end 
my  days  with  a  worthy  man  like  you. 
Don't  you  put  yourself  about,  I'll  lead 
that  Madame  Chapoulot  a  prettj'  dance. 
Is  it  for  a  retired  milliner  to  give  herself 
such  airs  and  graces  ?  " 

Thereupon  Schmucke  went  and  took  up 
the  post  of  observation  which  he  liad  pre- 
pared for  himself.  Dame  Cibot  had  left 
the  door  ajar,  and  Fraisier  glided  in  and 
gently  closed  it  so  soon  as  Schmucke  had 
shut  himself  in  his  own  room.  The  ad- 
vocate was  provided  with  a  candle  and  a 
piece  of  very  fine  brass  wire,  wherewith 
to  unseal  the  will.  Dame  Cibot  experi- 
enced very  little  difficulty  in  removing  the 
kej'  that  was  tied  in  the  handkerchief 
which  lay  beneath  Pons's  pillow ;  inas- 
much as  the  old  musician  had  designedly' 
allowed  the  handkerchief  to  peep  from 
beneath  the  bolster,  and  aided  Dame 
Cibot's  maneuvers  by  h'ing  with  his  head 
over  the  edge  of  the  bedstead  and  in  a 
position  that  rendered  it  a  ver^'  simple 
matter  to  capture  the  handkerchief.  Hav- 
ing secured  the  key,  Dame  Cibot  marched 
straight  to  the  writing-desk,  opened  it  as 
noiselessly  as  possible,  discovered  the 
spring  of  the  secret  drawer,  and  rushed 
into  the  salon,  with  the  will  in  her  hand. 
This  circumstance  excited  Pons's  curi- 
osity to  the  very  highest  degree.  As  for 
Schmucke,  he  trembled  from  head  to  foot 
as  if  he  had  been  committing  some  crime. 

"  Go  back  to  your  post,"  said  Fraisier, 
as  he  took  the  will  from  Dame  Cibot ; 
'•  for  if  he  should  wake  he  ought  to  find 
you  there." 

When  Fraisier  (with  an  adroitness 
which  showed  that  this  was  not  his 
maiden  effort  of  this  kind)  had  unsealed 
the  envelope,  he  read,  with  profound 
astonishment,  the  following  singular 
document  : 

"  This  is  my  will. 

"This  fifteenth  day  of  April,  one  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  and  forty-five,  being 
of  sound  mind,  as  this  testament  drawn 
up  with  the  assistance  of  Monsieur  Trog- 


non,  notary-,  will  prove,  I,  feeling  that  I 
must  shortly  succumb  to  the  illness  from 
which  I  have  been  suffering  since  the 
commencement  of  the  mouth  of  February 
last,  have  thought  fit,  inasmuch  as  I  de- 
sire to  dispose  of  my  goods  and  chattels, 
to  make  my  last  will  as  follows.  I  have 
frequently  been  struck  by  the  evils  to 
which  the  masterpieces  of  the  painter 
are  exposed— evils  which  frequently  in- 
volve the  total  destruction  of  those  mas- 
terpieces. I  have  been  seized  with  a 
feeling  of  pity  for  the  beautiful  pictures 
which  are  doomed  to  travel  perpetually 
from  clime  to  clime  without  ever  finding 
a  home  in  one  certain  spot,  to  which 
those  who  admire  them  may  repair  to 
view  them.  It  has  always  been  mj' 
opinion  that  the  reallj'  immortal  pages 
of  the  great  masters  ought  to  be  na- 
tional propertj^  and  should  be  continu- 
ally offered  to  the  eyes  of  men,  just  as 
light  (which  is  God's  masterpiece)  is 
granted  to  all  his  childi'en. 

"  Now,  inasmuch  as  I  have  spent  my 
life  in  choosing  and  gathering  together 
sundry  pictures,  which  are  the  glorious 
productions  of  the  greatest  masters ;  since 
these  pictures  are  perfect,  and  have  never 
been  either  repainted  or  retouched,  I  have 
dwelt  with  pain  upon  the  tliought,  that, 
after  having  been  the  delight  of  nij-  ex- 
istence, they  are  doomed  to  be  sold  by 
auction,  and  to  be  scattered,  some  in  En- 
gland, some  in  Russia — dispersed  hither 
and  thitlier,  as  they  were  before  they 
were  brought  together  by  me.  I  have 
therefore  determined  to  save  them  from 
these  misfortunes,  them  and  the  magnifi- 
cent frames  in  which  they  are  inclosed, 
and  which  are  all  of  them  the  handiwork 
of  cunning  workmen. 

"Actuated,  therefore,  by  these  mo- 
tives, I  give  and  bequeath  to  the  king 
the  pictures  comprised  in  my  collection 
as  a  contribution  to  the  museum  at  the 
Louvre,  charged — if  the  bequest  be  ac- 
cepted— with  the  payment  of  an  annu- 
ity of  two  thousand  four  hundred  francs 
to  my  friend  Monsieur  Schmucke.  If 
the  king,  as  trustee  of  the  uuisenm,  dis- 
claims the  legacy  burdened  with  this 
cliarge,  then  the  said  pictures  shall  form 


ISO 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


part  of  the  bequest  which  I  herebj'  make 
to  my  friend  Schmucke,  of  all  the  prop- 
erty' of  wliieh  I  am  possessed  on  condition 
that  he  shall  make  over  the  'Monkey's 
Head  '  by  Goya,  to  my  cousin.  President 
Camusot,  and  the  flower  picture  by  Abra- 
ham Mignon,  being'  a  studj'  of  tulips,  to 
Monsieur  Trognon,  notary,  whom  I  here- 
hx  appoint  executor  of  this  my  testament, 
and  upon  further  condition,  that  he  pays 
to  Madame  Cibot,  who  has  been  my 
housekeeper  for  ten  years,  an  annuitj'  of 
two  lumdred  francs.  Lastly,  my  friend 
Schmucke  will  make  over  the  '  Descent 
from  the  Cross,'  by  Rubens,  being  the 
sketch  of  his  celebrated  picture  at  Ant- 
werp, to  mj'  parish  church  for  the  orna- 
mentation of  one  of  its  chapels,  as  a 
token  of  gratitude  for  the  kindness  of 
Monsieur  Duplanty  the  curate,  to  whom 
I  am  beholden  for  the  power  of  dying  a 
Christian  and  a  Catholic,"  etc.,  etc. 

'"Tis  absolute  ruin  !  "  exclaimed  Frai- 
sier  to  himself ;  "  the  ruin  of  all  my  hopes. 
Ah !  I  begin  to  believe  all  that  Madame 
Camusot  told  me  about  the  malignity  of 
this  old  artist  !  "' 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Dame  Cibot,  coming  in. 

"  Your  gentleman  is  a  monster  ;  he  has 
given  everything  to  the  museum,  to  the 
State.  Now,  one  cannot  bring  an  action 
against  the  State  !  The  will  cannot  be 
set  aside.  We  are  robbed,  ruined,  plun- 
dered, murdered !  " 

"What  has  he  given  me  ?  " 

"An  annuity  of  two  hundred  francs." 

"  That's  a  fine  tale,  indeed  !  Why,  he's 
no  end  of  a  scamp  !  " 

"  Go  and  see  if  there's  an  end  of  him," 
said  Fraisier.  "  I  am  about  to  i-eplace 
the  will  of  your  scamp  in  its  envelope." 


XXVI. 

WHEREIN   DAME    SAUVAGE   REAPPEARS. 

The  moment  that  Madame  Cibot's  back 
was  turned,  Fraisier  clapped  the  will  into 
his  pocket  and  supplied  its  place  in  the 
envelope  with  a  sheet   of   blank    paper. 


He  then  resealed  the  envelope  so  skill- 
fully that  he  triumphantly  exhibited  the 
seal  to  Madame  Cibot  on  her  return  and 
asked  her  whether  she  could  detect  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  operation.  Dame 
Cibot  took  the  envelope,  fingered  it,  and 
feeling  that  it  was  full,  heaved  a  pro- 
found sigh.  She  had  fondly  hoped  that 
Fraisier  would  himself  have  burned  the 
fatal  document. 

"  Well,  and  what  is  to  be  done  now,  my 
dear  Monsieur  Fraisier?  "  she  inquired. 

"  Oh  !  that  is'  your  concern  !  /  am  not 
the  heir;  but  if  I  had  the  least  claim  to 
all  that,"  continued  he,  pointing  to  the 
collection,  "  I  know  full  well  what  I  should 
do." 

"  That's  precisely  what  I'm  a-asking  of 
you,"  said  Dame  Cibot,  stupidly. 

"There's  a  fire  in  the  grate,"  said 
Fraisier,  as  he  rose  to  depart. 

"Well,  when  all's  said  and  done,  no 
one  but  you  and  me'U  know  anything 
about  the  matter  !  "   said    Dame   Cibot. 

"  It  can  never  be  proved  that  there 
was  any  will  in  existence,"  replied  the 
man  of  law. 

"  And  how  about  j'ou  ?  " 

"  Me  ? — if  Monsieur  Pons  dies  intestate, 
I  guarantee  you  a  hundred  thousand 
francs." 

"Ah,  yes,  of  course,"  .said  she;  "people 
promise  you  heaps  of  gold,  and  wlicn 
they've  got  what  they  want  they  hagg-le 
with  you  just  as — " 

She  stopped  short,  and  it  was  high 
time,  for  she  was  just  on  the  point  of 
mentioning  Elie  Magus  to  Fraisier. 

"Well,  I'm  off,"  said  Fraisier.  "In 
your  interests  it  won't  do  for  me  to  be 
seen  in  these  rooms ;  but  we  will  meet 
below  in  the  lodge." 

WJ*6n  she  had  closed  the  outer  door, 
Dame  Cibot  returned  with  the  envelope 
in  her  hand,  fully  intending  to  throw  it 
into  the  fire,  but  when  .she  had  reached 
the  bedroom  and  was  making  for  the  fire- 
place, she  felt  both  her  arms  suddenly  pin- 
ioned, and  found  herself  with  Pons  on  one 
side  of  her  and  Schmucke  on  the  other. 
The  friends  had  planted  themselves  on 
either  side  of  the  door,  with  their  backs 
against  the  partition. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


181 


"  Oh  !  "  screamed  Dame  Cibot,  and  fell 
upon  the  floor  In  hideous  convulsions — 
real  or  feigned ;  the  truth  was  never 
known. 

This  spectacle  produced  so  strong  an 
impression  upon  Pons,  that  he  was  seized 
with  a  mortal  faintness ;  and  Schraucke, 
leaving-  Dame  Cibot  where  she  lay,  made 
haste  to  get  Pons  into  bed  again.  The 
two  friends  trembled  like  men  who  in  the 
execution  of  some  painful  project  have 
overtaxed  their  strength.  When  Pons 
was  in  bed  and  Schmucke  had  partially 
regained  his  equanimity,  his  attention 
was  attracted  by  the  sound  of  some  one 
sobbing;  and  lo,  Dame  Cibot,  on  her 
knees,  was  weeping  bitterly  and  stretch- 
ing out  her  liands  to  the  two  friends, 
was  addressing  entreaties  to  them  in 
most   expressive   dumb   show. 

"  It's  only  idle  curiosity  !  dear  Mon- 
sieur Pons,"  said  she,  so  soon  as  she  saw 
that  the  attention  of  the  two  friends  was 
directed  toward  her;  "the  besetting  sin 
of  women,  you  know !  But  I  found  I 
couldn't  read  j-our  will,  and  I  was  a-go- 
ing to  replace   it — " 

"Away  wid  you!"  said  Schmucke, 
starting  to  his  feet,  and  towering  with 
his  towering  indignation,  "you  are  ein 
monzder  !  you  have  tried  to  gill  my  goot 
Bons.  He  is  right !  you  are  worze  dan  a 
monzder ;  you  are  accurzed  !  " 

When  Dame  Cibot  perceived  the  horror 
depicted  on  the  face  of  the  candid  German, 
she  rose  from  her  knees,  proud  as  Tar- 
tuffe,  darted  at  Schmucke  a  glance  that 
made  him  tremble,  and  left  the  room, 
taking  with  her,  concealed  in  the  folds  of 
her  dress,  a  beautiful  little  picture  by 
Metzu,  which  Elie  Magus  had  greatly 
admired,  terming  it  "a  diamond."  In 
the  lodge  Dame  Cibot  found  Fraisier,  who 
was  waiting  for  her  in  the  hope  that  she 
would  have  burned  the  envelope  and  the 
blank  sheet  of  paper  which  he  had  substi- 
tuted for  the  will.  Great  was  his  aston- 
ishment to  see  his  client  terror-stricken, 
and,  to  all  appearances,  entirely  upset. 

"  What  has  happened  ?  "  said  he. 

"What  has  happened,  dear  Monsieur 
Fraisier  ?— Why,  just  this  has  happened  ; 
that  under  pretense  of  giving  me  sound 


advice,  and  acting  as  my  guide,  you  have 
caused  me  to  lose  all  cliance  of  getting 
my  n"annuity  and  the  confid.'nce  of  these 
gentlemen — " 

And  she  launched  forth  upon  one  of 
those  torrents  of  woi-ds  in  which  she  was 
unrivaled. 

"  Don't  waste  your  breath  in  talking 
nonsense,"  said  Fraisier  dryly,  cutting 
his  client  short.  "The  facts  I  the  facts  ! 
and  quickly." 

"Well  then,  this  was  what  happened." 
And  she  told  him  exactly  what  had  oc- 
curred. 

"I  haven't  caused  you  to  lose  any- 
thing," replied  Fraisier.  "These  two  gen- 
tlemen must  have  had  some  doubts  about 
your  honesty ;  else  they  would  not  have 
laid  this  trap  for  j'ou  ;  they  were  waiting 
for  and  watching  you  !  You  arc  keeping 
something  back  from  me,"  added  the 
man  of  law,  casting  a  tiger  glance  at 
the  portress. 

"  Me  keep  anything  back  from  j'ou  I 
After  aU  as  you  and  me  have  done  to-, 
gether  ! " 

"But,  my  darling,  /have  done  nothing 
that  is  reprehensible,"  said  Fraisier,  thus 
manifesting  his  intention  to  deny  his 
nocturnal  visit  to  Pons's  rooms. 

Dame  Cibot  felt  as  if  the  roots  of  her 
hair  were  so  many  red-hot  wires  while  the 
rest  of  her  body  was  as  cold  as  ice. 

"What?  "  exclaimed  she,  dumfounded. 

"Here  is  the  criminal  process,  ready  to 
hand  !  You  have  rendered  3'ourself  liable 
to  be  prosecuted  for  stealing  a  will,"  re- 
plied Fraisier,  coolly. 

Dame  Cibot  met  this  assertion  with  a 
gesture  of  horror. 

"Take  courage,"  pursued  Fraisier; 
"  you  have  nie  for  your  counsel.  My 
only  object  was  to  show  you  how  easy 
it  is,  in  one  way  or  another,  to  expose 
yourself  to  what  I  told  you  of  in  our  Ih^t 
interview.  Come  now,  what  have  you 
done  to  this  German,  who  is  so  unsuspect- 
ing, to  lead  him  to  secrete  himself  in  the 
room  without  your  knowledge  ?  " 

"  Nothing  at  all.  It  all  comes  of  what 
happened  the  other  day  when  I  kept  on 
telling  Monsieur  Pons  that  he  had  seen 
double.    Ever  since  that  day  these  gentle- 


182 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


men  have  changed  their  manner  to  me 
n'altogether ;  so  that  you  are  the  cause 
of  all  my  misfortunes  ;  for  if  I  had  lost 
my  hold  upon  Monsieur  Pons,  I  was,  at 
least,  sure  of  the  German,  for  he  talked 
about  niarrying  me,  or  of  taking  me  to 
live  with  him,  which  it's  all  one  and  the 
sime  thing." 

This  explanation  was  so  plausible  that 
Fraisier  was  obliged  to  rest  contented 
with  it. 

"Cheer  up,"  he  resumed;  "I  have 
promised  you  a  fortune,  and  I  will  keep 
my  word.  Up  to 'this  moment,  every- 
thing connected  with  this  affair  was  prob- 
lematical ;  now  it  is  as  good  as  bank- 
notes ;  you  will  have  an  annuity  of  twelve 
hundred  francs,  at  least.  But  you  must 
obey  my  orders,  my  dear  Madame  Cibot, 
and  execute  them  with  intelligence." 

"  I  will,  dear  Monsieur  Fraisier,"  said 
the  portress  with  all  the  suppleness  of 
•  servility.     She  was  completely  cowed. 

"Well!  good-by  then,"  said  Fraisier, 
quitting  the  lodge,  and  carrying  off  the 
dangerous  will  in  his  pocket. 

He  returned  home  in  great  exultation, 
for  the  will  was  a  most  formidable  weapon 
in  his  hands. 

"  I  shall  now  have  an  excellent  guar- 
antee for  the  good  faith  of  Madame  de 
Marville,"  thought  he.  "If  she  should 
take  it  into  her  head  to  break  her  prom- 
ise, she  would  lose  the  succession." 

At  early  dawn,  Remonencq,  having 
opened  his  shop  and  left  it  to  the  care  of  his 
sister,  went,  as  he  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  doing  for  some  days  past,  to  see  how 
his  good  friend  Cibot  was  faring.  He 
found  the  portress  examining  the  picture 
by  Metzu.  She  was  asking  herself  how 
a  little  bit  of  painted  wood  could  possibly 
be  worth  so  much  money. 

"  Ah  !  ah  !  "  said  Remonencq,  looking 
over  Madame  Cibot's  shoulder,  "  that's 
the  only  picture  which  Monsieur  Magus 
was  sorry  at  not  having  ;  he  said  that  if 
he  owned  that  little  thing,  nothing  would 
be  wanting  to  complete  his  happiness." 

"What  would  he  give  for  it?  "  asked 
Dame  Cibot. 

"  Now,  if  you  promise  to  marry  me 
within   a  year  of  j'our  widowhood,"  re- 


plied Remonencq,  "  I  will  undertake  to 
get  twenty  thousand  francs  for  it  from 
Elie  Magus,  and,  if  you  don't  marry  me, 
you  will  never  be  able  to  sell  the  picture 
for  more  than  a  thousand  francs." 

"  And  why  ?  " 

"  Because  you  would  be  obliged  to  give 
a  receipt  as  the  owner  of  the  picture,  and 
that  would  involve  you  in  a  lawsuit  with 
the  heirs.  If  you  were  my  wife,  I  should 
sell  it  myself  to  Monsieur  Magus,  and  all 
that  is  required  of  a  dealer  is  an  entry  in 
his  purchase-book,  and  I  shall  enter  the 
picture  as  sold  to  me  by  Monsieur 
Schmucke.  Come  now,  let  me  put  the 
bit  of  wood  in  my  shop — if  your  husband 
should  die,  you  might  get  into  trouble 
about  it,  whereas  no  one  would  think  it 
odd  for  me  to  have  a  picture  in  my  place. 
You  know  me  w^ell  enough  to  trust  me ; 
besides,  if  you  wish  it,  I  will  give  you  a 
receipt." 

Caught  as  she  was,  in  this  act  of  crimi- 
nality, the  avaricious  porl-ress  closed  with 
Remonencq's  offer,  and  thus  forever  bound 
herself  to  him. 

"You  are  quite  right,"  said  she,  lock- 
ing up  the  picture  in  her  chest  of  drawers. 
"  Bring  me  your  receipt." 

"Neighbor,"  said  the  broker,  in  an 
undertone,  leading  the  portress  to  the 
step  of  the  gatewaj^,  "I  can  plainly  see 
that  we  shall  not  save  the  life  of  our  poor 
friend  Cibot ;  Dr.  Poulain  gave  no  hopes  of 
him  yesterday  evening,  and  said  that  he 
would  not  last  out  the  daj'.  It's  very  sad, 
no  doubt;  but  after  all  you  were  not  in 
your  proper  place  here.  Your  place  is 
in  a  fme  shop  in  the  Boulevard  des  Capu- 
cines.  Are  you  aware  that  I  have  made 
nearly  a  hundred  thousand  francs  in  the 
last  ten  years,  and  if  j'ou  have  an  equal 
amount  one  of  these  days,  I  undertake  to 
make  a  fine  fortune  for  you — if  you  are 
my  wife.  You  would  be  a  lady,  well 
waited  on  by  my  sister,  who  would  look 
after  the  housekeeping,  and — " 

Here  the  broker  was  intemipted  b^tthe 
heartrending  groans  of  the  little  tailor, 
who  was  just  beginning  to  feel  the  agonies 
of  death. 

"  Go  along  with  j'ou,"  said  Dame  Cibot; 
"  3'ou  n'are  a  monster,  to  talk  to  rac  about 


COUSIN    POXS. 


183 


such   things,  while   my  poor  husband  is 
dying-  in  such  dreadful  pain — " 

"Ah,  it's  because  I  love  you  to  distrac- 
tion, and  would  do  an^'thing  to  get  you." 

'•  If  you  loved  me,  you  wouldn't  say 
anji:hing  to  me  just  now,"  replied  she. 

And  Remonencq  returned  to  his  shop, 
sure  that  Dame  Cibot  would  be  his  wife. 

At  about  ten  o'clock  there  was  a  sort 
of  tumult  at  the  door  of  the  house ;  for 
the  sacraments  were  being  administered 
to  Cibot.  All  the  friends  of  the  little 
tailor,  the  porters  and  portresses  of  the 
Rue  de  Normandie  and  of  the  adjacent 
streets,  encumbered  the  lodge,  the  en- 
trance gateway,  and  the  street  front  of 
the  house.  Under  these  circumstances  the 
successive  arrivals  of  M.  Leopold  Hanne- 
quin,  accompanied  by  one  of  his  brother 
notaries,  and  of  Schwab  and  Brunner,  at- 
tracted no  attention.  They  reached  Pons's 
apartments  unobserved  by  Madame  Cibot; 
for  it  was  to  the  portress  of  the  adjoining 
house  that  the  notary  applied  for  informa- 
tion as  to  which  story  Pons  occupied,  she 
it  was  who  directed  him  to  the  second- 
floor.  As  to  Schwab's  companion,  Brun- 
ner, he  had  already-  paid  a  visit  to  the  Pons 
Museum ;  he  therefore  passed  on  without 
making  any  inquiries,  and  showed  the  way 
to  his  partner  Schwab. 

Pons  now  formally  revoked  the  will 
which  he  had  made  on  the  previous  even- 
ing, and  appointed  Schmucke  his  univer- 
sal legatee.  As  soon  as  the  ceremony  was 
over  and  Pons  had  expressed  his  gratitude 
to  Schwab  and  Brunner,  and  earnestly' 
commended  the  interests  of  Schmucke  ^o 
Monsieur  Leopold  Hannequin,  the  old 
musician  sunk  into  a  state  of  utter  pros- 
tration— the  result  of  the  energy  he  had 
exerted  during  the  night-scene  with 
Dame  Cibot,  and  in  this  the  final  act  of 
the  drama  of  social  life.  So  intense  was 
his  exhaustion  that  Schmucke  begged 
Schwab  to  go  and  inform  the  Abbe  Du- 
planty  ;  for  the  old  German  did  not  like 
to  quit  the  bedside  of  his  dying  friend, 
and  Pons  was  asking  that  the  sacraments 
might  be  administered  to  him. 

Dame  Cibot,  meanwhile,  who  had  been 
excluded  from  the  apartments  of  the  two 
friends,   was  seated  at  the   foot  of  her 


husband's  bed,  and  had  wholly  neglected 
to  prepare  Schmucke"s  brealcfast.  But 
the  events  of  the  morning,  and  the  spec- 
tacle of  Pons's  calm  dissolution— for  the 
old  musician  was  facing  death  like  a  hero 
—had  so  wrung  the  heart  of  Schmucke 
that  he  felt  no  sensation  of  hunger.  To- 
ward two  o'clock,  however,  the  portress, 
having  seen  nothing  of  the  old  German, 
was  induced  by  curiosity  quite  as  much 
as  by  concern  on  Schmucke's  account,  to 
ask  Remonencq's  sister  to  go  and  see 
whether  the  old  German  wanted  any- 
thing. Just  at  that  very  moment  the 
Abbe  Duplanty  (having  heard  the  poor 
mu.sician's  last  confession)  was  adminis- 
tering to  him  the  rite  of  extreme  unction; 
so  that  the  ceremony  was  disturbed  by 
Mademoiselle  Remonencq's  repeated  ring- 
ing. Now,  seeing  that  Pons,  in  his  dread 
of  being  robbed,  had  prevailed  upon 
Schmucke  to  swear  that  he  would  allow- 
no  one  to  enter  the  apartments,  the  old 
German  took  no  heed  of  Mademoiselle 
Remonencq's  reiterated  applications  to 
the  bell-handle ;  whereupon  that  lady 
went  downstairs  in  great  alarm,  and 
told  Dame  Cibot  that  Schmucke  had. 
not  opened  the  door  to  her. 
•  This  circumstance  (which  was  suffi- 
ciently striking)  did  not  escape  the  ob- 
servation of  Fraisier,  who,  ever  since 
brealcfast-time  had  been  stationed  in  the 
porter's  lodge,  where  he  had  held  an  un- 
broken conference  with  his  friend.  Dr. 
Poulain.  Schmucke — so  thought  the  man 
of  law — Schmucke  (to  whom  a  death-bed 
was  a  noveltj')  was  on  the  point  of  being 
subjected  to  all  the  inconveniences  which 
surround  the  denizen  of  Paris,  who  is 
suddenh"^  brought  face  to  face  with  death 
— inconveniences  which  are  greatly  en- 
hanced by  the  want  of  aid  and  the 
absence  of  an  agent.  It  was  at  this 
crisis  then,  that  the  idea  of  being  himself 
the  mainspring  of  all  Schmucke's  move- 
ments occurred  to'  Fraisier,  who  knew 
full  well  that,  under  such  circumstances, 
relatives  who  are  genuinely  distressed 
lose  their  heads  entirely.  We  will  now 
relate  how  the  two  friends.  Dr.  Poulain 
and  Fraisier,  set  to  work  to  achieve  the 
desired  result. 


184 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


The  beadle  of  Saint  Francis's,  one  Can- 
tinel  by  name,  who  had  formerly  been  a 
dealor  in  g-lass,  lived  in  the  Rue  d'Or- 
leans,  in  the  house  adjoining  that  in 
which  Dr.  Poulain's  apartments  were 
situated.  Now,  it  so  happened  that  Ma- 
dame Cantinet,  oni;  of  the  pew-openers 
at  Saint  Francis's,  had  been  attended 
by  Dr.  Poulain  gratuitously.  She  con- 
sequently felt  very  much  indebted  to 
him,  and  had  often  impai-ted  to  him  the 
whole  story  of  her  misfortunes.  The  Pair 
of  Nut-Crackers  who,  on  Sundays  and 
saints'  days,  regularly  attended  the  ser- 
vices at  Saint  Francis's,  were  on  excellent 
terms  with  the  beadle,  the  Swiss,  the  dis- 
penser of  holy  water ;  in  short,  with  all 
the  members  of  that  ecclesiastical  militia 
which,  in  Paris,  is  dubbed  with  the  title 
of  le  bas  clerge — a  class  of  persons  to 
whom  the  faithful  are  in  the  habit  of  pre- 
sent ing  small  gratuities  when  years  have 
ripened  the  acquaintanceship.  Schmucke, 
accord  ingly,  was  as  well  known  to  Madame 
Cantinet  as  Madame  Cantinet  was  to  him. 

Now,  in  Madame  Cantinet's  side  there 
were  two  thorns,  which  enabled  Fraisier 
to  use  her  as  a  blind  and  passive  tool. 
Cantinet  junior  was  stage-struck :  turn- 
ing his  back  upon  the  ranks  of  the  Church 
Militant  and  the  beadlehood  that  was 
probably  in  store  for  him,  he  had  en- 
rolled liimself  among  the  ballet-dancers 
at  tlie  Cirque-Olympique  and  was  leading 
a  devil-may-care  existence  that  wellnigh 
broke  his  mother's  heart.  Her  purse  too 
had  often  been  emptied  b^'  his  forced 
loans.  Cantinet  senior,  her  husband, 
was  the  slave  of  two  vices — drunkenness 
and  indolence  —  and  had  thereby  been 
coinpc'lled  to  give  up  his  business.  But 
the  wretch,  instead  of  learning  wisdom 
from  misfortune  had,  in  the  exercise  of 
his  functions  as  beadle,  found  food  for 
his  favorite  foibles.  He  never  did  anj' 
work,  but  drank  so  hard  with  the  coach- 
men who  drove  the  wedding-parties  to  the 
church,  with  the  undertaker's  men,  and 
with  the  parson's  pensioners,  that  his 
face  was  scarlet  even  at  noon. 

Thus  Madame  Cantinet,  after  having 
(as  she  said)  brought  her  husband  a  por- 
tion amounting  to  twelve  thousand  francs, 


found  herself  doomed  to  an  old  age  of  pen- 
ury. The  story  of  her  wrongs  had  been 
dinned  into  the  ears  of  Dr.  Poulain  a  hun- 
dred times ;  and  it  occurred  to  him  that 
Madame  Cantinet  might  be  serviceable  in 
facilitating  the  introduction  of  Madame 
Sauvage  as  cook  and  char-woman  into 
the  estabUshment  of  Pons  und  Schmucke. 
To  introduce  Madame  Sauvage  point- 
blank  was  out  of  the  question,  for  the 
mistrust  of  the  Pair  of  Nut-Crackers  had 
become  quite  absolute ;  that  was  made 
abundantlj'  clear  to  Fraisier  by  the  re- 
fusal to  open  the  door  to  Mademoiselle 
Remonencq.  But  that  the  pious  musi- 
cians would  accept,  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  the  services  of  any  person 
recommended  bj'  the  Abbe  Duplantj', 
seemed  equally  clear  to  Fraisier  and 
Poulain.  According  to  their  plan,  Ma- 
dame Cantinet  was  to  be  accompanied  by 
Madame  Sauvage;  and,  once  introduced 
into  the  citadel,  Fraisier's  housekeeper 
would  be  as  efficient  as  Fraisier  himself. 

When  the  Abbe  Duplantj-  had  reached 
the  entrance  gateway  on  his  way  out,  he 
was  dela^-ed  for  a  moment  b.y  the  crowd 
of  Cibot's  friends  who  had  gathered  there 
to  show  the  interest  the^'  felt  in  the  old- 
est and  most  respected  concierge  of  the 
Quarter. 

Dr.  Poulain  bowed  to  the  abbe,  and, 
taking  him  aside,  said  to  him : 

"  I  am  just  going  to  paj'  a  visit  to  poor 
Monsieur  Pons ;  he  may  pull  through  yet, 
if  we  can  persuade  him  to  submit  to  an 
operation  for  the  extraction  of  the  stones 
\thich  have  formed  in  the  gall-bladder. 
They  are  palpable  to  the  touch,  and  give 
rise  to  an  irritation  wliich  must  terminate 
fatally,  unless  the  cause  is  removed;  but 
it  is  perhaps  not  yet  too  late  to  attempt 
the  operation.  You  ought  to  use  your 
influence  over  your  penitent  to  induce  him 
to  undergo  the  operation.  I  will  answer 
for  his  recovery,  unless  some  unfavorable 
accident  should  supervene." 

"  As  soon  as  I  have  taken  the  holy  pyx 
back  to  the  church,  I  will  return,"  said  the 
Abbe  Duplanty;  "for  Monsieur  Schmucke's 
state  of  mind  is  such  that  he  is  in  need  of 
religious  consolation." 

"  I  have  just  learned  that  he  is  thrown 


COUSIN    PONS. 


18J 


upon  his  own  resources,"  said  Dr.  Poulain. 
"  The  worthy  German  had  a  httle  alter- 
cation with  Madame  Cibot  this  morning' ; 
but  since  she  has  acted  as  the  housekeeper 
of  these  two  gentlemen  for  ten  years,  the 
misunderstanding-  will,  no  doubt,  be  mere- 
ly temporary ;  still,  in  the  meantime,  he 
must  not  be  left  to  his  own  devices,  in  the 
position  which  he  will  be  called  upon  to 
face.  To  look  after .  him  is  a  work  of 
charity.  I  say,  Cantinet,"  cried  the  doc- 
tor, summoning  the  beadle,  "askj'our  wife 
whether  she  is  willing  to  nurse  Monsieur 
Pons,  and  act  as  Monsieur  Schmucke's 
housekeeper  for  a  few  days,  in  the  place 
of  Madanae  Cibot — who,  hy  the  way,  even 
if  this  little  quarrel  had  not  arisen,  would 
still  have  been  oblig-ed  to  find  a  substi- 
tute. Madame  Cantinet  is  an  honest 
woman,"  added  the  doctor,  addressing' 
the  Abbe  Duplanty. 

"Oh,  3'ou  couldn't  make  a  better 
choice,"  replied  the  worthy  priest;  "for 
Madame  Cantinet  enjoys  the  confidence 
of  the  authorities  as  collector  of  the  pew- 
rents." 

A  few  minutes  later  Doctor  Poulain, 
seated  at  the  bedside  of  Pons,  was  watch- 
ing his  expiring  agonies.  Schmucke  be- 
sought his  friend  to  allow  the  operation 
to  be  performed.  But  he  besought  in 
vain.  The  only  replies  vouchsafed  by  the 
old  musician  to  the  supplications  of  the 
poor  bi'oken-hearted  German  were  a  shake 
of  the  head,  and  now  and  then  a  gesture 
of  impatience.  Finally',  collecting  all  his 
strength,  the  dying  man  cast  a  terrible 
glance  at  Schniucke,  and  exclaimed  : 
'•■  Surelj'  you  might  let  me  die  in  peace  !  " 

This  look,  this  language,  caused  poor 
Schmucke  a  pang  that  almost  killed  him  ; 
but  taking  Pons's  hand,  he  gently  kissed 
it,  and  retaining  it  between  his  own  hands, 
endeavored  once  again  to  communicate 
his  vital  heat  to  the  body  of  his  friend. 
Just  at  that  moment  Dr.  Poulain,  hearing 
the  bell  ring,  went  to  the  door  and  ad- 
mitted the  Abbe  Duplanty. 

"  Our  poor  invalid  is  just  entering  upon 
his  death-struggle.  A  few  hours  heuce 
he  will  be  dead  ;  you  will,  no  doubt,  send 
a  priest  to  watch  by  the  body  to-night. 
But  it  is  high  time  to  call  in  Madame 


Cantinet  and  a  char-woman  to  help  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke;  he  is  utterly  incapable 
of  giving  a  single  thought  to  any  sub- 
ject ;  I  tremble  for  his  reason,  and  there 
is  some  valuable  property  here  which 
ought  to  be  in  the  custody  of  honest 
folks." 

The  Abbe  Duplanty,  good,  easy,  unsus- 
pecting priest,  was  struck  by  the  justice 
of  Dr.  Poulain 's  observations.  He  enter- 
tained, moreover,  a  vei-y  favorable  opinion 
of  thedoctor  of  the  district.  Accordingly, 
he  went  to  the  threshold  of  the  chamber 
of  death,  and  made  a  sign  for  Schmucke 
to  come  and  speak  to  him.  Schmucke 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  resign 
Pons's  hand,  which  was  contracting  and 
clutching  the  hand  of  Schmucke,  as  if  the 
dying  man  were  tumbhng  over  a  preci- 
pice, and  were  ready  to  catch  at  any- 
thing that  would  arrest  his  fall.  But 
the  dying,  as  every  one  is  aware,  are 
subject  to  an  hallucination  which  iiupels 
them — like  persons  trying  to  rescue  their 
most  precious  property'  from  the  flames 
of  a  conflagration — to  fasten  on  every- 
thing that  comes  in  their  wa^'.  Thus  it 
came  to  pass  that  Pons  released  the  hand 
of  Schmucke,  and  seizing  the  bedclothes, 
gathered  them  about  his  body  with  a 
hurried  movement  that  was  instinct  with 
avarice. 

"  What  will  you  do  when  you  are  left 
alone  with  your  dead  friend  ?  "  asked  the 
worthy  clergyman,  when  Schmucke,  thus 
released,  went  to  hear  what  he  had  to 
say.  "You  have  no  Madame  Cibot 
now — " 

"  She  is  a  monzder  who  has  murdered 
Bons  ! "  said  Schmucke. 

"  But  you  must  have  some  one  by  your 
side,"  replied  Dr.  Poulain,  "  for  some  one 
must  sit  up  with  the  body  to-night." 

"J  will  zit  up;  I  will  bray  to  Got!  " 
replied  the  guileless  German. 

"  But  you  must  eat ! — who  is  there  to 
do  your  cooking  for  you  now  ?  "  observed 
the  doctor, 

"  Grief  takes  away  my  abbedide  !  "  re- 
plied Schmucke,  artlessly. 

"But,"  said  Poulain,  "you  will  have 
to  go,  accompanied  by  witnesses,  and 
report    the   death;    the    body  must    be 


186 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


stripped  and  wrapped  in  a  shroud  ;  the 
•  funeral  must  be  ordered  ;  and  food  pre- 
pared for  the  nurse  who  looks  after  the 
body  and  the  priest  who  sits  up  with  it. 
Can  you  do  all  that  yourself?  In  the 
capital  of  the  civilized  world,  people  do 
not  die  like  dogs  !  " 

Schmucke's  ej'es  grew  big  with  fright. 
He  was  seized  with  a  brief  access  of  in- 
sanity. 

"But  Bons  will  not  die  —  I  will  zave 
him  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  You  cannot  hold  out  long  without 
getting  a  little  sleep,  and  then  who  is  to 
take  your  place  ?  for  Monsieur  Pons  must 
be  attended  to.  There  must  be  some  one 
to  give  him  his  draughts,  and  to  prepare 
his  medicine — " 

"  Ah  !  dat  is  true,"  said  the  German. 

"Well  then,"  resumed  the  Abbe  Du- 
plantj',  "  I  think  of  sending  Madame  Can- 
tinet  to  you  ;  she  is  a  worthy,  honest 
wom^n — " 

So  completely  was  Schmucke  bewildered 
by  the  enumeration  of  his  social  duties  to 
his  dead  friend,  that  he  could  have  wished 
to  die  with  Pons. 

"  He's  a  mere  child  !  "  remarked  Pou- 
lain  to  the  Abbe  Duplanty. 

"  A  ghild  !  "  echoed  Sclimucke,  me- 
chanically. 

"Well,"  said  the  curate,  "I  will  go 
and  speak  to  Madame  Cantinet  and  send 
her  to  you." 

"You  needn't  put  yourself  to  that 
trouble,"  said  the  doctor;  "she  lives 
close  by  me,  and  I  am  going  home." 

Death  is  like  an  invisible  assassin,  with 
whom  the  dying  carry  on  a  combat.  In 
the  death-throes  they  receive  their  final 
wounds,  and  in  the  effort  to  retuim  those 
wounds  they  struggle.  Pons  liad  now 
reached  this  final  stage ;  he  began  to 
utter  gi'oans,  interspersed  with  shrieks ; 
whereupon  Schmucke,  the  Abbe  Duplanty 
and  Poulain  hastened  to  the  bedside  of 
the  dying  man.  All  at  once  Pons  re- 
ceived in  the  center  of  vitaUty  that  final 
blow  which  severs  the  bonds  that  unite 
the  body  to  the  soul ;  regained,  for  a  few 
moments  the  perfect  calm  which  ensues 
when  the  death-struggle  is  over,  and,  re- 
stored  to  himself  with   all  the  serenity 


of  death  upon  his  countenance,  glanced 
almost  ga\'ly  at  those  who  stood  around 
him. 

"Ah  !  doctor,  I  have  had  a  hard  time 
of  it,  but  you  were  right,  I  am  better 
now.  Thanks,  my  good  abbe ;  I  was 
asking  myself  where  Schmucke  was.J" 

"  Schmucke  has  eaten  nothing  since 
four  o'clock  yesterday  afternoon ;  you 
had  no  one  to  wait  upon  you,  and  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  call  Madame 
Cibot  in  again — " 

"  She  is  capable  of  anj^  atrocity  !  "  said 
Pons,  who  made  no  attempt  to  disguise 
the  horror  with  which  the  mere  mention 
of  Dame  Cibot's  name  inspired  him. 
"You  are  right;  Schmucke  requires 
the  assistance  of  some  one  who  is  thor- 
oughly trustworthy." 

Hereupon  Poulain  interposed  :  "'  The 
Abbe  Duplanty  and  I  have  laid  our 
heads  together,  and — " 

"  Oh  !  thank  you,"  said  Pons.  "  I  had 
not  thought  about  the  matter." 

" — And  the  abbe  suggested  the  name 
of  Madame  Cantinet — " 

"Oh!  the  pew-opener!"  cried  Pons. 
"Yes,  she  is  an  excellent  creature." 

"  She  has  no  love  for  Madame  Cibot," 
resumed  the  doctor,  "  and  she  will  take 
good  care  of  Monsieur  Schmucke — " 

"  Send  her  to  me,  dear  Monsieur  Du- 
planty— her  and  her  husband;  then  I 
shall  feel  easy.  She  won't  steal  any- 
thing that  is  here." 

Schmucke  had  now  repossessed  himself 
of  Pons's  hand  and  was  gleefuUj^  clasping 
it.  He  believed  that  his  friend  was  re- 
stored to  health. 

"Let  us  be  off.  Monsieur  I'Abbe," 
said  the  doctor;  "I  will  send  Madame 
Cantinet  here  forthwith;  I  understand 
these  matters ;  'tis  very  likely  that  she 
will  not  find  Monsieur  Pons  alive." 


XXVII. 


DEATH   IN   ITS  STERN   REALITY. 

While  the  Abbe  Duplantj-  was  engaged 
in  prevailing  on  the  dj'ing  man  to  engage 


cousix  pojsrs. 


187 


Madame  Cantinet  in  the  capacity  of 
nurse,  Fraisier  had  summoned  the  pew- 
opener  to  his  ofELce,  and  was  subjecting 
her  to  his  corrupting-  conversation  and  to 
the  influence  of  his  pettifogging  artifices 
— an  influence  not  easily  resisted.  Accord- 
ingly, Madame  Cantinet,  a  lean,  bilious- 
looking  woman  with  big  teeth  and  pallid 
lips,  a  woman  who,  in  common  with  many 
women  in  the  lower  ranks  of  life,  had 
been  rendered  stupid  by  misfortune,  and 
had  come  to  such  a  pass  that  even  the 
smallest  daily  gains  seemed  affluence  to 
her,  was  easily  persuaded  to  introduce 
Madame  Sauvage  as  charwoman.  Frai- 
sier's  housekeeper  had  already  received 
the  word  of  command  ;  and  had  promised 
to  weave  a  net-work  of  iron  about  the  two 
musicians,  and  to  watch  them  as  a  spider 
watches  a  fly  that  h^  been  caught  in  the 
spider's  web.  A  licensed  tobacco -shop 
was  to  be  Madame  Snuvage's  reward. 
It  was  thus  that  Fraisier  pui-posed  to 
himself  to  get  rid  of  his  pretended  nurse, 
and  in  her  person  to  place  a  spy  and  a 
policeman  at  Madame  Cantinet's  elbow. 
As  there  was  a  servant's  room  and  a 
small  kitchen  attached  to  the  suite  of 
apartments  occupied  by  the  two  friends. 
Dame  Sauvage  would  be  able  to  find 
sleeping  accommodation,  and  to  do  such 
cooking  as  Schmucke  might  require. 

Pons  had  just  drawn  his  last  breath 
when  the  two  women  arrived,  escorted  by 
Dr.  Poulain.  The  German  was  still  clasp- 
ing between  his  hands  the  hand  of  his 
departed  friend,  fi'om  which  the  warmth 
of  life  was  gradually  receding.  He  mo- 
tioned to  Madame  Cantinet  to  be  silent ; 
but  the  martial  aspect  of  Madame  Sau- 
vage threw  him  so  entirely  off  his  guard 
that  he  suffered  a  gesture— such  as  that 
masculine  lady  was  thoroughly  familiar- 
ized with — to  escape  hira. 

"This  lady,"  said  Madame  Cantinet, 
•'  is  a  person  recommended  by  Monsieur 
Duplanty  ;  she  has  been  cook  to  a  bishop, 
and  is  honesty  itself ;  she  will  look  after 
the  cookery." 

"Oh,  you  may  speak  up  now,"  cried 
the  burly  and  asthmatic  Madame  Sauv- 
age;  "the  poor  gentleman  is  dead  !  he 
has  just  gone  !  " 


At  these  words  Schmucke  uttered  a 
piercing  shriek ;  he  could  feel  the  ice-cold 
hand  of  Pons  growing  rigid,  and  he  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  upon  those  of  Pons,  the  ex- 
pression of  which  would  soon  have  driven 
him  mad  but  for  the  interposition  of  Ma- 
dame Sauvage,  who,  accustomed,  as  she 
doubtlessly  was,  to  scenes  of  this  descrip- 
tion, approached  the  bed,  holding  in  her 
hand  a  looking-glass  which  she  placed 
before  the  dead  man's  lips.  When  she 
saw  that  no  breath  escaped  from  them  to 
dim  the  surface  of  the  mirror,  she  snatched 
Schmucke's  hand  away  from  that  of  the 
corpse,  exclaiming,  as  slie  did  so  : 

'■  Let  it  go,  monsieur,  can't  j'ou  ?  or 
j'ou  won't  be  able  to  get  your  hand  away 
at  all.  You  don't  know  how  stiff  the 
bones  will  grow  !  Dead  folks  grow  cold 
quickh',  I  can  tell  j'ou.  If  one  don't  lay 
out  the  body  while  it  is  still  warm  one, 
has  to  break  the  limbs  later  on — "  To 
close  the  eyes,  then,  of  the  poor  dead  musi- 
cian, fell  to  the  lot  of  this  terrible  woman, 
who  forthwith  proceeded,  as  is  the  wont 
of  those  who  follow  the  calling  of  sick- 
nurse — a  calling  to  which  she  had  devoted 
herself  for  the  last  ten  years — to  undress 
Pons  and  to  lay  him  out  at  full  length, 
placing  the  arms  and  hands  close  to  the 
'sides  of  the  corpse,  and  drawing  the  bed- 
clothes over  its  face.  All  this  was  done 
with  the  cool  and  practiced  skill  of  a  shop- 
man making  up  a  parcel  of  goods. 

"I  want  a  sheet  to  wrap  him  in;  where 
is  one  to  be  found?"  she  inquired  of 
Schmucke,  who  was  dismayed  at  her  pro- 
ceedings. He  had  seen  religion  treating 
with  the  most  profound  respect  the  being 
who  was  destined  to  so  loftj'  a  futui-e  be- 
yond the  skies.  This  species  of  packing, 
in  the  course  of  which  his  friend  was 
treated  as  a  thing,  caused  Schmucke  a 
pang  that  was  enough  to  destroy  the  very 
elements  of  thought. 

"Do  what  you  bleaze !  "  he  mechani- 
cally replied. 

This  was  the  first  time  that  this  un- 
sophisticated creature  had  seen  any  per- 
son die;  and  this  person  was  Pons,  his 
only  friend,  the  only  being  who  had  un- 
derstood and  loved  him ! 

"Well,  then,  I  shall  go  and  ask  Ma- 


188 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


dame  Cibot  where  the  sheets  are  to  be 
found,"  said  Dame  Sauvag-e. 

"We  shall  want  a  folding--bed  for  this 
ladj'  to  sleep  upon,"  said  Madame  Can- 
tinet  to  Schmucke,  who  merely  nodded 
his  head  and  burst  into  tears.  Thereupon, 
Madame  Cantinet  left  the  poor  man  in 
peace ;  but  in  an  hour's  time  she  came 
back  to  him  and  said:  "Have  you  any 
money,  monsieur,  that  you  can  give  me 
to  make  some  purchases  with  ?  " 

Schmucke  turned  to  Madame  Cantinet 
a  face  whose  expression  would  have  dis- 
armed the  fiercest  hate.  He  pointed  to 
the  white,  wan,  sharpened  features  of  the 
corpse  as  if  they  were  a  sufficient  answer 
to  ever3'  question : 

"  Take  everything,  and  let  me  weep 
and  praj',"  said  he,  sinking-  down  upon 
his  knees. 

Madame  Sauvage  meanwhile  had  rushed 
away  to  announce  the  death  of  Pons  to 
Fraisier.  Fraisier,  on  hearing  this  news, 
jumped  into  a  cabriolet  and  drove  straiglit 
to  Madame  Camusot's  to  bespeak,  for  the 
morrow,  the  power  of  attorney  authoriz- 
ing him  to  act  on  behalf  of  the  heirs. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Madame  Cantinet  to 
Schmucke  after  an  hour  had  elapsed  since 
her  former  question ;  "  I  have  been  to 
Madame  Cibot,  who  must  be  familiar 
with  your  household  arrangements,  to 
ask  where  I  can  lay  my  hands  on  what 
is  wanted ;  but  as  she  has  just  lost  her 
husband  she  wellnigh  killed  me  with 
abuse.  Will  you  be  good  enough  to 
listen  to  me,  monsieur — " 

Schmucke  merely  stared  at  thq  woman, 
who  was  all  unconscious  of  the  barbarity 
of  her  conduct ;  for  the  common  people 
are  accustomed  passively  to  submit  to 
the  acutest  moral  suffering. 

"Monsieur,  we  are  in  want  of  some 
linen  for  a  shroud,  and  of  money  to  buy 
a  folding-bed  for  this  lady,  a  kitchen- 
range,  plates,  dishes,  and  glasses ;  for 
we  shall  have  a  priest  passing  the  night 
here,  and  the  ladj'  can  find  absolutely 
nothing  in  the  kitchen." 

"  Why,  monsieur,"  chimed  in  Dame 
Sauvage,  "I  must  have  some  firewood 
and  coals  to  prepare  the  dinner,  and  I 
can  find  nothing  at  all.     There  is  nothing 


very  astonishing  in  that,  however,  being 
as  Dame  Cibot  found  ever3'thing  for  you." 

"But,  my  good  lady,"  said  Madame 
Cantinet,  pointing  to  Schmucke,  who 
was  lying  in  a  state  of  total  insensibility 
at  the  feet  of  the  corpse  ;  "you  wiU  not 
believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that  he  won't 
reply  to  any  question." 

"Well,  then,  my  darling,"  said  Dame 
Sauvage;  "since  that  is  so,  I  will  show 
you  what  we  do  in  these  cases." 

Hereupon  Dame  Sauvage,  having  exam- 
ined the  room  with  a  glance,  just  as  rob- 
bers throw  around  them  in  order  to  dis- 
cover the  hiding  places  that  are  likelj'  to 
contain  money,  "went  straight  to  Pons's 
commode,  opened  the  top  drawer,  and 
there  discovered  the  purse  in  which 
Schmucke  had  placed  what  remained  of 
the  money  produced  by  the  sale  of  the 
pictures.  Taking  up  the  purse  she  showed 
it  to  Schmucke,  who  gave  a  mechanical 
sign  of  assent. 

"  Here  is  some  money,  my  darling  !  " 
said  Dame  Sauvage  to  Madame  Cantinet. 
"  I  will  count  it  and  take  what  is  neces- 
saiy  to  buy  what  we  lack^wine,  food, 
candles,  everything,  in  short,  for  nothing 
have  they  now.  Search  the  chest  of 
drawers  for  a  sheet  to  wrap  the  body  in. 
Well  miglit  they  tell  me  that  this  poor 
gentleman  was  simple-mmded.  Simple- 
minded,  good  lack  !  I  can't  tell  exactly 
what  he  is  :  but  he  is  worse  than  simple- 
minded.  He  is  like  a  new-born  babe  ;  we 
shall  have  to  feed  him  with  pap — " 

Schmucke  watched  the  two  women  and 
their  proceedings  exactly  as  a  lunatic 
might  have  watched  them.  Broken  down 
with  grief,  and  plunged  into  a  quasi-cata- 
leptic state,  he  kept  his  e^'es  fixed  upon  the, 
fascinating  face  of  Pons,  the  contours  of 
which  had  gained  in  purity  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  absolute  repose  of  death. 
Schmucke  longed  to  die  ;  he  was  utterly 
indifferent  to  all  terrestrial  things.  Had 
the  room  been  wrapped  in  flames,  he  would 
not  have  budged  an  inch. 

"  There  are  twelve  hundred  and  fifty -six 
francs,"  said  Dame  Sauvage  to  Schmucke, 
who  merely  shrugged  his  shoulders.  But 
when  Dame  Sauvage  wanted  to  sew  the 
body  in  the  shroud  and  to  measure  the 


COUSIN    PONS. 


189 


sheet  against  the  corpse,  so  that  she 
might  cut  it  to  the  proper  length  before 
she  began  to  stitch  it,  there  ensued  be- 
tween her  and  the  poor  German  a  fearful 
struggle.  Schmucl^e  behaved  exactly  like 
a  dog  that  bites  all  those  who  attempt 
to  touch  his  master's  corpse ;  till  Dame 
Sauvage,  losing  all  patience,  seized  the 
old  man,  thrust  him  into  an  armchair,  and 
held  him  there  with  herculean  force. 

"Now,  now,  my  darling,"  cried  she  to 
Madame  Cantinet.  "Do  you  sew  the 
body  in  its  shroud." 

When  the  operation  was  complete,  Dame 
Sauvage  restored  Schmucke  to  his  former 
position  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  said 
to  him:  "Do  you  understand?  It  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  truss  the  poor 
man  like  a  corpse,  as  he  is" 

Schmucke  began  to  cry ;  and  the  two 
women,  leaving  him  to  his  own  devices, 
proceeded  to  take  possession  of  the  kitchen, 
which  they  very  soon  stocked  with  all  the 
necessaries  of  life.  Having  made  out  a 
preliminarj-  bill  of  three  hundred  and 
sixty  francs.  Dame  Sauvage  set  to  work 
to  prepare  a  dinner  for  four  persons,  and 
what  a  dinner  it  was,  to  be  sure  !  There 
was  the  cobbler's  pheasant — a  fat  goose — 
to  form  the  staple  of  the  meal ;  a  sweet 
omelet ;  a  green  salad  ;  and  the  prescrip- 
tive soup  and  houilli,  the  ingredients  of 
which  were  so  superabundant  that  the 
broth  looked  like  the  jelly  of  meat. 

At  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  priest 
sent  by  the  curate  to  watch  by  Pons's 
body  presented  himself,  accompanied  by 
Cantinet,  who  brought  with  him  four 
wax  tapers  and  some  of  the  church  can- 
dlesticks. The  priest  found  Schmucke 
stre>+-ched  out  at  full  length  upon  the  bed 
beside  the  body  of  his  friend,  and  holding 
it  tightly  clasped  in  his  arms.  Yielding 
to  the  authority  of  religion,  and  to  that 
only,  Schmucke  tore  himself  away  from 
the  corpse,  and  sunk  upon  his  knees, 
while  the  priest  cozily  ensconced  himself 
in  the  armchair.  AVhile  the  latter  was 
reading  prayers,  and  Schmucke,  kneeling 
before  the  corpse,  was  beseeching  God  to 
work  a  miracle,  and  unite  him  to  Pons  so 
that  they  might  both  be  buried  in  one 
grrave,   Madame  Cantinet  had  marched 


off  to  the  Temple  to  buy  a  folding  bed- 
stead and  a  complete  set  of  bed  furniture 
for  Madame  Sauvage;  for  the  purse  of 
twelve  hundred  and  fifty-six  francs  was 
in  a  state  of  pillage.  At  eleven  o'clock 
Madame  Cantinet  came  to  see  whether 
Schmucke  would  like  a  morsel  to  eat ;  but 
the  German  made  a  sign  that  he  wished 
to  be  left  alone. 

"Supper  is  waiting  for  you.  Monsieur 
Pastelot,"  said  the  pew-opener,  turning 
to  the  priest. 

When  Schmucke  found  himself  alone 
there  stole  over  his  features  a  smile  re- 
sembling that  of  a  madman  who  finds 
himself  at  liberty  to  gratify  some  longing 
as  fantastic  as  the  whims  of  a  pregnant 
woman  ;  he  threw  himself  upon  the  body 
of  his  friend,  and  once  more  clasped  it 
in  a  close  embrace.  ^  When  at  midnight 
the  priest  returned  and  reprimanded 
Schmucke,  the  latter  relinquished  his 
hold  upon  the  corpse,  and  resumed  his 
praj^ers.  At  daybreak  the  priest  de- 
parted ;  and  at  seven  in  the  morning  Dr. 
Poulain  paid  Schmucke  a  kindly  visit,  and 
pressed  him  to  eat ;  but  the  German  re- 
fused. 

"  If  you  don't  eat  something  now,  you 
will  feel  famished  on  your  return  ;  "  said 
the  doctor,  "for  you  must  go  to  the 
mairie,  accompanied  by  the  witness,  to 
report  the  death  of  Monsieur  Pons,  and 
have  it  duly  registered." 

"  I !  "  cried  the  German,  in  dismay. 

"  Who  else  ?  You  can't  avoid  the  ne- 
cessity, since  you  are  the  only  person  who 
was  present  when  he  died — " 

"I  gannot  walk,"  replied  Schmucke, 
invoking  the  aid  of  Dr.  Poulain. 

"Take  a  vehicle,"  gently  replied  the 
hypocritical  doctor.  "I  have  already 
given  a  certificate  of  the  decease.  Ask 
some  one  in  the  house  to  go  with  you. 
These  two  ladies  will  look  after  the  apart- 
ments while  you  are  away." 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  picture  to 
one's  self  the  full  extent  of  the  sutfering 
to  which  the  exactions  of  the  law  subject 
the  genuine  mourner.  'Tis  enough  to 
make  one  hate  civilization,  to  make  one 
prefer  the  customs  of  savages. 

At  nine  o'clock  Madame  Sauvage  con- 


190 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


trived  to  get  Schmucke  downstairs  by 
supporting:  him  under  the  arm-pits ;  but 
when  he  had  taken  his  seat  in  the  hack- 
ney coach  he  was  obliged  to  beg-  Renio- 
nencq  to  go  with  him  to  the  mairie  to 
register  the  death  of  Pons.  In  Paris,  in 
tlie  metropohsof  this  land  which  is  intoxi- 
cated with  the  love  of  equality,  inequality 
of  rank  stares  you  in  the  face,  go  where 
you  may,  do  what  you  will.  This  per- 
sistent force  of  circumstances  obtrudes 
itself  upon  our  notice,  even  in  the  events 
that  death  brings  in  its  train.  Among 
the  wealthy,  some  friend,  relative,  or  pro- 
fessional man  relieves  the  mourner  from 
the  burden  of  these  harrowing  details; 
but,  like  taxes,  they  fall  in  full  force  upon 
the  poor — those  helpless  i^roletarians  who 
have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  suffering. 

"Ah  !  you  have  ggod  reason  to  regret 
him,"'  said  Remonencq  by  way  of  response 
to  a  plaintive  cry  from  the  poor  martyr ; 
"  for  he  was  a  fine  fellow,  a  thoroughly 
honest  man ;  and  he  leaves  a  noble  col- 
lection behind  him,  too  ;  but  do  you  know, 
monsieur,  that  you,  being  as  j'ou  are  a 
foreigner,  will  bo  placed  in  a  ver^'  uncom- 
fortable position ;  for  folks  are  a-saying 
in  all  quarters  that  you  are  Monsieur 
Pons's  heir." 

Schmucke  did  not  hear  one  syllable  of 
what  was  said  to  him.  His  grief  was  so 
profound  as  to  border  on  insanity.  There 
is  a  tetanus  of  the  mind  as  well  as  of  the 
body. 

'•  And  you  would  do  well  to  get  a 
lawyer  or  some  professional  man  to 
act  as  your  i-eprescntative,"  pursued 
Remonencq. 

"A  professional  man  !"  echoed  Schmucke 
mechanically. 

"You  will  find  that  you'll  want  some 
one  to  represent  you.  If  I  was  you,  now, 
I  should  get  a  man  of  experience — some 
man  who  is  known  in  the  Quarter — some 
one  as  you  can  trust.  For  my  part,  in 
all  vay  little  business  matters  I  employ 
Tabareau,  the  bailiff.  And  if  you  gave  a 
power  of  attorney  to  his  managing  clerk 
you  wouldn't  be  worried,  not  one  bit." 

This  suggestion,  which  Fraisier  had 
prompted,  and  the  offer  of  which  Remo- 
nencq and  Dame  Cibot  had  mutually  ar- 


ranged, dwelt  in  Schmucke's  memory; 
for  on  those  occasions  when  (flgurativelj' 
speaking)  sorrow  m&y  be  said  to  freeze 
the  mind  by  arresting  the  normal  current 
of  ideas,  the  memory  retains  all  such  im- 
pressions as  it  accidentally  receives.  Yet 
while  Schmucke  was  listening  to  Remo- 
nencq, the  old  German  g-azed  at  him  with 
an  eye  from  which  all  trace  of  intelligence 
had  so  entirely  vanished  that  the  broker 
held  his  tongue. 

"  If  he  remains  in  this  idiotic  condition," 
thought  Remonencq,  "  it  will  be  an  eas3'' 
matter  for  me  to  buy  all  the  rattle-traps 
up  yonder  for  a  hundred  thousand  francs 
if  he  is  the  owner  of  them.  Here  we  are 
at  the  mairie,  monsieur,"  said  he,  aloud. 

Remonencq  was  forced  to  help  Schmucke 
out  of  the  hackney  coach  and  to  support 
him  in  their  progress  to  tlie  office  of  the 
registrar  of  births,  deaths,  and  mar- 
riages. 

Arrived  there,  Schmucke  found  himself 
in  the  midst  of  a  wedding-party;  nor 
was  this  all ;  he  was  obliged  to  wait  till 
his  turn  came ;  for  by  one  of  those  coin- 
cidences that  so  often  occur  at  Paris,  the 
clerk  had  five  or  six  deaths  to  register. 
During  this  interval  the  poor  German 
must  have  undergone  an  agony  scarcely 
less  inteiise  than  that  of  the  Saviour  of 
mankind. 

"Are  you  Monsieur  Schmucke?"  in- 
quired a  man  dressed  in  black,  addressing 
himself  to  the  German,  who  was  astounded 
at  the  mention  of  his  name.  At  the  pei- 
son  who  thus  accosted  him  Schmucke 
stared  with  the  dazed  expression  with 
which  he  had  encountered  the  remarks  of 
Remonencq. 

"What  do  you  want  with  him?  "  said 
the  broker  to  the  stranger.  "  Can't  j'ou 
leave  the  man  alone?  Don't  j'ou  see  that 
he  is  in  trouble?  " 

"You  have  just  lost  yowc  friend,  mon- 
sieur, and  you  would  like  to  raise  a  fitting 
monument  to  his  memory ;  for  you  are 
his  heir,"  said  the  stranger;  "I  am  sure 
monsieur  would  not  like  to  act  shabbily- ; 
monsieur  will  no  doubt  purchase  a  plot  of 
ground  in  perpetuity  for  a  grave.  Then 
Monsieur  Pons  was  such  a  friend  to  the 
arts  !    It  would  be  a  great  pity  not  to 


COUSIN    PONS. 


191 


place  upon  his  tomb  Music,  Painting,  and 
Sculpture — three  beautiful  figures  at  the 
foot  of  the  grave,  bathed  in  tears — " 

Reraonencq  here  indulged  in  a  repellent 
gesture  worthy  of  a  son  of  Auvergne,  to 
which  the  niau  responded  b}'  another  ges- 
ture which  might  be  called  a  commercial 
g-esture,  and  said  as  plainly  as  words 
could  have  said:  "Can't  you  let  me 
transact  vay  business?  " 

The  broker  perfectly'  understood  it. 

"  I  am  agent  to  the  house  of  Sonet  & 
Co.,  funeral  monument  contractors,"  pur- 
sued the  tout,  whom  Walter  Scott  would' 
have  nicknamed  Young  Mortality.  "  If 
monsieur  should  think  fit  to  intrust  us 
with  the  order,  we  would  save  hina  the 
trouble  of  going  into  the  city  to  purchase 
the  ground  needed  for  the  interment  of 
the  friend  whom  the  Arts  have  lost — " 

Remonencq  nodded  his  head  by  way 
of  expressing  his  assent,  and  nudged 
Schmucke's  elbow. 

"  It  happens  to  us  every  day  to  under- 
take, on  behalf  of  families,  the  due  exe- 
cution of  all  formalities,"  pursued  the 
tout,  encouraged  by  the  Auvergnat's 
gesture.  "  In  the  first  moment  of  sor- 
row it  is  very  difficult  for  an  heir  to  at- 
tend in  person  to  these  details,  and  we 
are  accustomed  to  perform  these  little 
services  for  our  clients.  Our  monuments, 
monsieur,  are  charged  for  at  so  much  per 
meter,  either  in  freestone  or  marble.  We 
open  the  ground  for  family  graves.  We 
undertake  everything  at  the  most  rea- 
sonable prices.  It  was  our  house  that 
executed  the  magnificent  monument  of 
the  beautiful  Esther  Gobseck  and  Lucien 
de  Rubempre,  one  of  the  most  magnifi- 
cent ornaments  of  Pere-Lachaise.  We 
employ  the  very  best  workmen;  and," 
added  he  (as  he  saw  another  man  dressed 
in  black  approaching,  with  the  view  of 
putting  in  a  word  for  some  other  firm  in 
the  marble  and  sculpture  line),  "I  invite 
monsieur  to  be  on  his  guard  against  the 
small  corttractors,  who  turn  out  nothing 
but  trumpery." 

It  has  often  been  said  that  death  is  the 
end  of  a  journey  ;  but  it  is  not  generally 
known  how  thoroughly  apposite  is  the 
metaphor  as  applied  to  death  in  Paris.   A 


corpse,  especially  if  it  be  the  corpse  of  a 
man  of  quality,  is  greeted  on  the  somber 
shore  very  much  as  a  traveler  disembark- 
ing in  a  seaport  town  is  besieged  and 
badgered  by  all  the  hotel  touts  in  the 
place.  Since  philosophers  and  those  fam- 
ilies which,  being  convinced  of  their  per- 
petuity, build  themselves  sepulchers  just 
as  they  build  themselves  mansions,  stand 
alone  in  taking  any  thought  of  death  and 
of  the  social  consequences  that  death  in- 
volves, it  always  comes  too  soon  ;  and  this 
the  more,  in  that  a  very  intelligible  senti- 
ment precludes  expectant  heirs  from  treat- 
ing it  even  as  a  possible  event.  Hence  it 
almost  invariably  happens  that  those  who 
have  the  misfortune  to  lose  father,  mo- 
ther, wife,  or  child,  are  immediately  as- 
sailed by  business  touts  who  take  advan- 
tage of  the  confusion  of  distress  to  snap 
an  order.  In  bygone  days  the  funeral 
monument  contractors  (whose  estabUsh- 
ments  are  all  grouped  together  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  world-famed  cemetery  of 
Pere-Lachaise,  and  have  there  formed  a 
street  which  might  well  be  called  the  Rue 
des  Tombeaux)  used  to  beset  the  heirs  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  grave  or  as  they 
issued  from  the  cemetery ;  but  urged  by 
competition — which  is  the  genius  of  com- 
merce—  these  contractors  imperceptibly 
gained  ground,  and  have  nowadays  in- 
vaded the  city  itself  and  pushed  on  as  far 
as  the  approaches  to  the  various  mairies. 
In  fact,  into  the  very  house  of  death  do 
the  touts  of  these  enterprising  men  of 
business  force  their  way,  a  design  for  a 
gravestone  in  their  hands. 

"7  am  doing  business  with  this  gentle- 
man," said  the  tout  of  the  firm  of  Sonet 
&  Co.  to  the  supervening  tout. 

'•  Pons  deceased  !  Whore  are  the  wit- 
nesses ?  "  sung  out  the  attendant  at  the 
registrj^ 

"  Come,  monsieur,"  said  the  tout, 
addressing  Remonencq. 

Remonencq  begged  the  man  to  raise 
Schmucke,  who  remained  seated  on  the 
bench  like  a  mass  of  inanimate  matter. 
The  two  men  led  him  to  tlxe  railing  behind 
which  the  registrar  shelters  himself  from 
the  public  grief.  Remonencq — Schmucke's 
temporary  providence — was  assisted  in  his 


192 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


task  bj'  Dr.  Poulain,  who  had  presented 
himself  for  the  purpose  of  supphing-  the 
necessary  information  as  to  Pons's  age 
and  place  of  birth.  The  German  knew 
one  fact  and  only  one — Pons  had  been  his 
friend  !  When  the  signatures  had  been 
affixed,  Reinonencq  and  the  doctor,  fol- 
lowed by  the  tout,  proceeded  to  place  the 
poor  German  in  the  carriage,  into  which 
the  zealous  tout,  in  his  anxiety  to  secure 
the  order  for  the  stone,  likewise  slipped. 
Dame  Sauvage  was  on  the  lookout  at  the 
entrance  gateway,  and  she,  with  the  help 
of  Reuionencq  and  the  tout  of  Messrs. 
Sonet  &  Co.,  carried  the  almost  fainting 
Schmucke  to  his  rooms. 

"He  is  going  to  swoon,"  cried  the  tout, 
who  was  anxious  to  bring  to  a  conclusion 
the  piece  of  business  which,  according  to 
him,  was  already  on  foot. 

"  You  are  quite  right !  "  replied  Dame 
Sauvage.  "  He  has  done  nothing  but 
cry  for  the  last  twentj'-four  hours,  and 
has  refused  all  nourishment.  There  is 
nothing  like  grief  for  exhausting  the 
stomach." 

"Now,  my  dear  client,"  said  the  tout 
of  Messrs.  Sonet,  "  do  just  take  a  little 
broth ;  you  have  so  many  things  to  do, 
you  know ;  jou  have  to  go  to  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  to  buy  the  ground  on  which  you 
are  about  to  erect  a  monument  in  com- 
memoration of  this  friend  of  the  Arts, 
and  in  token  of  your  gratitude." 

"Whj^  such  conduct  is  not  rational," 
said  Madame  Cantinet,  bringing  in  some 
broth  and  a  piece  of  bread. 

"Bethink  you,  my  dear  sir,"  said  Ro- 
monencq,  "bethink  you,  if  you  are  so 
weak  as  all  that,  to  get  some  one  to  act 
as  your  agent ;  for  you  have  your  hands 
full  of  business;  the  funeral  must  be 
ordered  !  SureZ^/,  you  don't  want  your 
friend  to  be  buried  like  a  pauper." 

"'  Come,  come,  my  good  sir,"  said  Dame 
Sauvage ;  and  seizing  a  favorable  moment 
when  Schmucke'shead  was  reclining-  upon 
the  back  of  the  armchair,  she  poured  a 
spoonful  of  soup  into  his  mouth  and  began 
to  feed  the  reluctant  German  as  if  he  had 
been  a  child. 

"  Now,  if  you  were  wise,  sir,  you  would 
call  some  one  in  to  act  as  your  represen- 


tative, since  your  desire  is  quietly  to 
abandon  yourself  to  youv  grief." 

"■  Since  monsieur  intends  to  erect  a 
magnificent  monument  to  the  memory 
of  his  friend,  all  he  need  do  is  to  author- 
ize me  to  take  the  necessary  steps,  and 
I  will  do—" 

"  What  is  all  this  about  ?  What  is  all 
this  about  ?"  interposed  Dame  Sauva-ge. 
"  Monsieur  has  given  you  an  order  ?  Who 
are  you,  pray  ?  " 

"  One  of  the  agents  of  the  firm  of  Sonet 
&  Co.,  my  good  lady,  the  largest  con- 
tractors for  funeral  monuments  in  Paris," 
said  the  tout,  taking  from  his  pocket  a 
card  which  he  presented  to  Dame  Sauvage. 

"Well,  well,  all  right,  all  right;  we 
will  .send  to  you  when  it  is  convenient; 
but  you  mustn't  take  advantage  of  this 
gentleman's  condition.  You  can  see 
clearly  that  he  is  not  in  full  possession 
of   his   senses — " 

"  If  you  can  manage  to  secure  us  the 
order,"  whispered  the  tout  of  Messrs. 
Sonet  &  Co.,  to  Madame  Sauvage,  as  he 
led  her  out  on  to  the  landing,  "  I  am 
authorized  to  offer  you  fortj^  francs." 

"  Well,  give  me  your  address,"  said  the 
mollified  Dame  Sauvage. 

Schmucke,  finding  himself  alone,  and 
feeling  all  the  better  for  the  bread  and 
soup  which  he  had  at  least  swallowed  if 
he  had  not  digested,  now  hurried  back  to 
Pons's  room  and  resumed  his  prayers. 
He  was  plunged  in  the  profoundest  abys- 
ses of  sorrow  when  he  was  recalled  from 
his  state  of  utter  self-forgetfulness  by  a 
young  man  clad  in  black  who  was  say- 
ing to  him  for  the  eleventh  time  :  "  Mon- 
sieur— "  an  interpellation  which  the  more 
readily  attracted  the  attention  of  the  old 
man  in  that  he  at  the  same  time  felt  a 
tug  a*  his  coat-sleeve. 

"What  do  you  want  now  ?  " 

"  Monsieur,  we  ai'e  indebted  to  Doctor 
Gannal  for  a  sublime  discovery ;  far  be  it 
from  us  to  contest  his  glorj' ;  he  has  re- 
newed the  miracles  of  Egypt ;  but  at  the 
same  time,  certain  improvements  have 
been  introduced,  and  the  results  we  have 
obtained  are  quite  surprising.  Therefore, 
if  3^ou  wish  to  see  your  friend  again,  just 
as  he  was  when  alive — " 


COUSIN    PONS. 


193 


"Zee him  again!"  exclaimed Schmucke. 
"  Will  he  zbeak  to  me  ?  " 

"Well,  not  exactly.  He  will  do  everj'^- 
thing  hut  speak,"  replied  the  embalmer's 
tout.  "And  then  he  will  remain  to  all 
eternity  in  the  state  in  which  he  is  when 
the  embalmment  takes  place.  The  opera- 
tion occupies  only  a  few  minutes  ;  an  incis- 
ion in  the  carotid  arterj^  and  the  injection 
are  all  that  is  requisite ;  but  it  is  high  time 
to  begin ;  if  you  were  to  delay  the  opera- 
tion for  another  quarter  of  an  hour  jon 
would  be  deprived  of  the  sweet  satisfac- 
tion of  ha\"ing  preserved  the  body." 

"Away  wid  you  to  de  tefil ! "  said 
Schmucke ;  "  Pons  is  a  zbirit,  and  dat 
zbirit  is  wid  God  !  " 

"That  fellow  hasn't  a  grain  of  grati- 
tude in  him,"  said  the  stripling  tout  of 
one  of  the  rivals  of  the  celebrated  Gan- 
nal,  as  he  passed  through  the  carriage 
gatewaj'.  "He  declines  to  have  his 
friend  embalmed  !  " 

"What  can  you  expect,  monsieur," 
said  Dame  Cibot,  who  had  just  had  her 
darling  embalmed.  "The  man  is  an 
heir,  a  legatee.  When  once  the  dead 
man's  goose  is  cooked  he  is  nothing 
whatever  to  them  folks." 


xxvni. 

HOW   PEOPLE   DIE   IN   PARIS. 

An  hour  afterward  Schmucke  beheld 
Madame  Sauvage,  followed  by  a  man 
Avho  was  dressed  in  black  and  looked  like 
a  workman,  enter  the  apartment. 

"Monsieur,"  said  she,  "Cantinet  has 
been  good  enough  to  send  this  gentleman 
here ;  he  is  the  coffln-maker  to  the  par- 
ish." 

The  coffin-maker  bowed  with  an  air  of 
commiseration  and  condolence,  but  still, 
like  a  man  who  is  sure  of  his  ground,  and 
knows  himself  to  be  indispensable,  he 
^azed  with  the  eye  of  a  connoisseur  at 
the  corpse. 

"How  would  monsieur  like  the  thing 
to  be  made  ?  Of  deal,  plain  oak,  or  oak 
lined  with  lead  ?    Oak  lined  with  lead  is 

Balzac — G 


the  correct  thing.  The  body  is  of  aver- 
age length,"  said  the  coCan-maker,  who 
began  to  handle  the  feet  of  the  corpse  in 
order  to  take  its  measure. 

"Five  feet  six  and  a  half,"  added  he. 
"  Monsieur  no  doubt  intends  to  order  a 
funeral  service  at  church?" 

Schmucke  shot  at  the  man  a  succession 
of  glances  resembhng  those  of  a  madman 
meditating  an  assault. 

"  Sir,"  said  Dame Sauva'ge,  "you really 
ought  to  employ  somebody  to  take  all 
these  matters  of  detail  off  your  hands." 

"  Yez,"  assented  the  victim  at  last. 

"  Shall  I  go  and  fetch  Monsieur  Taba- 
reau  to  you ;  for  your  hands  will  soon  be 
quite  full  ?    Monsieur  Tabareau,  d'ye  see, 
is  the  most  trustworthy  man  in  the  dis 
trict." 

"  Yes,  Monsieur  Dapareau  !  His  name 
has  peen  mentioned  to  me,"  repUed 
Schmucke. 

"■  Well,  then,  monsieur  will  be  at  peace 
and  at  liberty  to  indulge  his  grief  after 
one  conference  with  his  proxy." 

At  about  two  o'clock  Monsieur  Taba- 
reau's  managing  clerk,  a  young  man  who 
intended  to  become  a  bailiff,  modestly 
presented  himself  to  Schmucke.  Aston- 
ishing are  the  privileges  of  youtli ;  it  never 
inspires  horror  !  This  young  man,  whose 
name  was  Villeinot,  seated  himself  by 
Schmucke's  side  and  waited  for  a  fitting 
opportunity  of  speaking  to  him.  This  re- 
serve made  a  very  favorable  impression 
on  Schmucke. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  youth,  "  I  am  the 
managing  clerk  of  Monsieur  Tabareau, 
who  has  confided  to  me  the  task  of  look- 
ing after  your  interests  in  this  place,  and 
attending  to  all  the  details  of  your  friend's 
interment.  Is  it  your  good  pleasure  that 
I  should  do  so  ?  " 

"  You  will  not  zave  my  life,  for  I  have 
not  long  to  liff ;  but  you  will  leave  me 
in  beace,  will  you  not  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  shall  not  be  exposed  to  a 
single  interruption,"  replied  Villeniot. 

"  Well,  what  nuizt  I  do  to  zegure  dat?" 

"Sign  this  document  appointing  Mon- 
sieur Tabareau  your  proxy  in  all  matters 
relating  to  the  succession." 

"Goot,  goot,  gitf  it  to  me,"  said  the 


194 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


German,  eager  to  sign  the  document 
without  a  moment's  delaj'. 

"  No,  no ;  I  must  first  read  the  deed 
over  to  you." 

"Read  on." 

Without  having  paid  the  slightest  at- 
tention to  the  language  of  this  general 
authority,  Schmucke  executed  it;  and 
the  youth  then  proceeded  to  take 
Schmucke  "s  orders  with  reference  to 
the  purchase  of  the  plot  of  ground 
(which  the  German  hoped  might  serve 
as  his  grave  also)  and  with  respect  to 
the  funeral  service  at  the  church.  Ville- 
mot  assured  Schmucke  that  he  would 
not  be  molested  any  further  and  would 
not  be  asked  to  find  any  money. 

"I  would  giff  all  dat  I  bozzezz  to  be 
left  alone,"  said  the  unhappy  man;  and 
he  once  more  threw  himself  upon  his 
knees  before  the  body  of  his  friend. 

Thus  then,  Fraisier  was  triumphant ; 
the  legatee  was  unable  to  stir  hand  or 
foot  beyond  the  circle  within  which  Ma- 
dame Sauvage  and  Villemot  held  him  in- 
closed. 

There  is  no  sorrow  sleep  cannot  subdue. 
Accordingly  when  the  day  was  drawing 
to  a  close,  Dame  Sauvage  found  Schmucke 
fast  asleep,  stretched  at  full  length  across 
the  foot  of  the  bed  on  which  the  body  of 
Pons  was  lying.  Raising  him  in  her  arms 
she  laid  him  in  his  own  bed,  and,  having 
tucked  him  up  with  motherly  care,  left 
him.  Schmucke  slept  till  morning.  When 
he  awoke,  or  rather,  when,  after  this 
brief  truce,  he  was  restored  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  misfortunes,  Pons's 
body  was  lying  beneath  the  carriage 
gatewa.y  in  such  a  state  as  is  accorded 
to  third-class  funerals.  In  vain,  there- 
fore, did  Schmucke  search  for  the  body 
of  his  friend  in  these  apartments,  which 
now  seemed  to  him  quite  vast,  and  void 
of  all  save  harrowing  mementos. 

Dame  Sauvage,  who  ruled  the  old  Ger- 
man with  all  the  authority  that  a  nurse 
exercises  over  her  urchin,  insisted  on  his 
eating  some  breakfast  before  he  set  out 
for  church ;  and  while  the  poor  victim 
was  forcing  himself  to  eat,  she  lifted  up 
her  voice  and  with  lamentations  worthy 
of    Jeremiah  himself  called   Schmucke's 


attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had  no  black 
coat  to  put  on ;  and  indeed,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  Schmucke's  wardrobe, 
under  the  care  of  Madame  Cibot,  had, 
before  Pons  had  fallen  ill,  arrived  pari 
passu  with  Schmucke's  dinner  at  its 
simplest  expression — to  wit,  two  pairs  of 
trousers  and  two  coats  ! 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  ai'e 
going  to  attend  Monsieur  Pons's  funeral 
dressed  as  you  are  ?  Why,  its  an  outrage 
on  decency,  gross  enough  to  make  the 
whole  Quarter  cry  shame  upon  you  !  " 

"  How  would  you  have  me  go,  den  ?  " 

"  Why,  in  mourning,  to  be  sure  !  " 

"In  mourning?" 

"  The  usages  of  society — " 

"  De  uzages  of  zoziet^'^ !  Mudge  I  gai'e 
for  all  zudge  trivialities  !  "  said  the  poor 
man,  who  was  now  worked  up  to  the  high- 
est pitch  of  exasperation  that  a  child- 
like mind  bowed  down  with  sorrow  can 
attain. 

"  Why,  'tis  a  pei"fect  monster  of  in- 
gi^atitude,"  quoth  Dame  Sauvage,  turn- 
ing to  a  gentleman  who  had  suddenly 
entered  the  room,  and  whose  aspect  made 
Schmucke  shudder. 

This  functionary ,who  was  magnificently 
arrayed  in  coat  and  waistcoat  of  black 
cloth,  black  breeches,  black  silk  stock- 
ings, white  ruffles,  silver  chain  with  pen- 
dant medal,  the  primmest  of  white  muslin 
cravats  and  white  gloves  ;  this  typical 
official,  stamped  with  one  uniform  stamp 
for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  mourners, 
held  in  his  hand  an  ebony  wand,  the  sym- 
bol of  his  functions,  while  beneath  his  left 
arm  he  carried  a  three-cornered  hat 
decked  with  a  tri-color  cockade. 

"I  am  the  master  of  the  ceremonies,'' 
said  this  personage,  in  subdued  tones. 

The  routine  of  his  daily  duties  had  ac- 
customed this  man  to  the  conduct  of 
funerals  and  brought  him  into  close  con- 
tact with  groups  of  relatives  plung-cd  in  a 
common  sorrow — real  or  feigned.  Hence 
he,  like  all  his  compeers,  had  contracted 
a  habit  of  speaking  in  low  and  gentle  ac- 
cents ;  his  mission  was  to  be  decent,  pol- 
ished, and  conventional,  like  a  statue 
representing  the  genius  of  death.  His 
announcement  caused  Schmucke  a  nerv- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


195 


ous  tremor  akin  to  that  which  the  sig'ht 
of  the  public  executioner  would  have 
excited. 

"Monsieur,  are  you  the  son,  the  bro- 
ther, or  the  father  of  the  deceased?" 
inquired  the  man  of  office. 

"I  am  all  dat,  and  more — I  am  his 
friend!"  said  Schmucke,  weeping  pro- 
fuselj'. 

"Are  you  the  heir  of  the  deceased?" 
asked  the  master  of  the  ceremonies. 

"De  heir?"  echoed  Schmucke.  "All 
worldly  matters  are  alike  to  me."  And 
he  relapsed  into  the  attitude  characteris- 
tic of  his  dull  despair. 

"Where  are  the  relatives,  the  friends  ? " 
inquired  the  master  of  the  ceremonies. 

"Dere  dey  are,  all  of  dem ! "  cried 
Schmucke.  "'  Dose  friends  never  gauzed 
my  boor  Bons  anj-  zuffering' !  Dey  are 
all  he  gared  for  bezides  me ! " 

"He  is  mad,  monsieur,"  said  Dame 
Sauvag-e  to  the  master  of  the  ceremonies. 
"Proceed,  it  is  wasting  time  to  listen  to 
what  he  says." 

Schmucke  had  now  resumed  his  seat, 
and,  having  subsided  into  his  previous  idi- 
otic condition,  was  mechanically  drjing 
his  tears.  At  this  moment  Villemot, 
Maitre  Tabareau's  managing  clerk,  came 
into  the  room ;  whereupon  the  master  of 
the  ceremonies,  recognizing  in  him  the 
person  who  had  given  the  directions  for 
the  funeral,  said  to  him :  "  Well,  mon- 
sieur, it  is  time  to  start ;  the  hearse  is  at 
the  door ;  but  I  own  I  have  rarely  wit- 
nessed such  a  funeral  as  this.  Where  arc 
the  relatives  and  friends  of  the  deceased?" 

"We  have  been  somewhat  pushed  for 
time,"  repUed  Monsieur  Villemot.  "This 
gentleman's  grief  was  so  profound  that  he 
took  no  thought  of  anything ;  but  there 
is  only  one  relative — " 

The  master  of  the  ceremonies  cast  a 
look  of  sympathy  at  Schmucke.  That 
expert  in  sorrow  was  at  no  loss  to  distin- 
guish the  genuine  from  the  false ;  so  he 
went  up  to  Sclimucke  and  said  to  him  : 
"Come,  my  dear  monsieur,  take  courage  ! 
Think  of  the  respect  that  is  due  to  the 
memory  of  your  friend." 

"We  forgot  to  issue  in\'itations  ;  but  I 
took  care  to  send  a  special  messenger  to 


Monsieur  le  President  de  Mar\'ille,  the  one 
relation  whom  you  heard  me  allude  to. 
There  are  no  friends— I  do  not  suppose 
that  the  people  connected  with  the  theater 
in  which  the  deceased  acted  as  conductor 
of  the  orchestra,  Avill  come.  But  I  be- 
lieve that  this  gentleman  is  his  universal 
legatee." 

"  Then  he  must  be  chief  mourner,"  said 
the  master  of  the  ceremonies. 

"  You  haven't  a  black  coat  ?  "  said  he, 
interrogatively,  as  his  eye  fell  upon 
Schmucke's  costume. 

"  Dere  is  noting  but  mourning  in  my 
heart,"  said  the  poor  German  ;  "mourn- 
ing so  deep  dat  I  can  feel  dat  I  am  dying. 
Got  \'l11  not  witdold  from  me  de  fafor  of 
uniting  me  to  my  friend  in  de  grafe,  and 
I  tank  Him  for  it !  " 

So  saying,  he  clasped  his  hands  to- 
gether. 

"I  have  told  our  Board  (which  has 
already  introduced  so  many  improve- 
ments)," resumed  the  master  of  .the 
ceremonies,  addressing  VUlemot,  "that 
they  ought  to  set  up  a  vestiary  and  lend 
out  mourning  costumes  for  hire — 'tis  a 
desideratum  that  becomes  more  and  more 
urgent  everj^  day.  But  since  this  gentle- 
man is  the  heir,  he  ought  to  wear  the 
mourning  cloak,  and  that  which  I  have 
brouglit  with  me  will  envelop  liim  from 
head  to  foot,  so  that  no  one  will  be  able 
to  detect  the  unsuitability  of  his  dress. 
Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  stand  up?" 
said  he,  turning  to  Schmucke. 

Schmucke  rose,  but  his  legs  gave  way 
beneath  him. 

"  Do  1J0U  support  him,"  said  the  master 
of  the  ceremonies  to  the  managing  clerk, 
"  since  3'ou  are  acting  as  his  proxy." 

Villemot  placed  his  arms  beneath  those 
of  Schmucke,  and  thus  supported  him ; 
while  the  master  of  the  ceremonies,  tak- 
ing one  of  those  ample,  but  hideous,  sable 
mantles  which  are  worn  by  heirs  when 
they  follow  the  hearse  from  the  house  of 
death  to  the  church,  fastened  it  under 
Schmucke's  chin  by  means  of  a  couple  of 
black  silk  strings. 

And  lo,  Schmucke  in  the  garb  of  heir  ! 

"  And  now,  we  have  a  serious  difllculty 
to  surmount,"  said  the  master  of  the  cere- 


196 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


monies.  "There  are  four  pall-tassels  to 
be  held.  If  no  one  attends  the  funeral, 
who  is  to  hold  them  ?  It  is  now  half -past 
ten,"  said  he,  after  consulting  his  watch. 
"  They  are  waiting  for  us  at  the  church." 

"Ah  !  Here  comes  Fraisier  ! "  ex- 
claimed Villemot,  most  imprudently. 

But  there  was  no  one  present  to  pick 
up  this  confession  of  simplicity. 

"  Who  is  this  gentleman  ?  "  asked  the 
master  of  the  ceremonies. 

"Oh!  he's  the  family." 

"  What  family  ?  " 

"  The  disinherited  family.  He  is  the 
proxy  of  Monsieur  le  President  Camusot." 

"  Good  !  "  said  the  master  of  the  cere- 
monies, with  an  air  of  satisfaction.  "  We 
shall  have  at  least  two  pall-bearers  ;  you 
will  be  one,  and  he  will  be  the  second." 

Delighted  at  finding  a  couple  of  pall- 
bearers, the  master  of  the  ceremonies 
went  and  fetched  two  pairs  of  splendid 
white  deerskin  gloves  and  politely  handed 
a  pair,  first  to  Fraisier  and  then  to  Ville- 
mot. 

"  Will  each  of  you  two  gentlemen  oblige 
me  by  holding  one  of  the  pall-tassels?  " 
.said  he. 

Fraisier,  ostentatiously  attired  in  a  com- 
plete suit  of  black — Fraisier,  with  his  white 
tie  and  semi-official  aspect,  was  enough  to 
make  one  shudder.  There  were  a  hun- 
dred writs  in  his  very  look. 

"Most  willinglj^  monsieur,"  was  his 
reply. 

"  If  two  other  persons  would  but  pres- 
ent themselves,  we  should  have  four  pall- 
bearers," said  the  master  of  the  cere- 
monies. 

At  this  critical  moment  in  came  the  in- 
defatigable tout*  of  Messrs.  Sonet  &  Co., 
followed  hy  the  only  person  who  had  not 
forgotten  Pons,  and  bethought  him  of 
paying  the  last  tribute  of  respect  to  the 
memory  of  the  poor  musician.  This  man 
was  a  *iupemumerary  at  the  theater, 
whose  office  was  to  lay  the  music  on  the 
stands  in  the  orchestra,  and  to  whom 
Pons,  knowing  him  to  be  a  married  man 
with  a  family,  had  been  in  the  habit  of 


•  Tout,  racing  slang,  a  stableboy  who  pretends 
to  sell  information  about  the  horses. 


presenting  a  monthly  donation  of  five 
francs. 

"Ah  !  Dobinard  "  {Topinard),  exclaim- 
ed Schmucke,  when  he  recognized  the 
young  man,  "you  love  Bons,  then  !  " 

"  Why,  monsieur,  every  day,  as  sure  as 
morning  came,  I  have  come  here  to  learn 
how  Monsieur  Pons  was  going  on." 

"  Effenj  day  !  Boor  Dobinard  !  "  said 
Schmucke,  squeezing  the  understrapper's 
hand. 

"  But  no  doubt  they  took  me  for  a  rela- 
tive of  Monsieur  Pons's,  and  received  me 
with  a  very  bad  grace.  It  was  no  use  my 
saying  that  I  belonged  to  the  theater, 
and  that  I  came  to  hear  how  Monsieur 
Pons  was  getting  on ;  they  told  me  that 
they  weren't  to  be  taken  in  in  that  fash- 
ion. I  asked  to  be  allowed  to  see  the  poor 
invalid,  but  I  was  never  permitted  to  go 
up  to  his  rooms." 

"  Dat  infamous  Zibod  !  "  said  Schmucke, 
pressing  the  horny  hand  of  the  underling 
of  the  theater  to  his  heart. 

"He  was  the  king  of  men,  was  that 
worthy  Monsieur  Pons.  Not  a  month 
passed  that  he  didn't  give  me  five  francs. 
He  knew  that  I  had  a  wife  and  three 
children.  My  wife  is  waiting  at  the 
church." 

"I  will  zhare  my  pread  wid  you  ! "  ex- 
claimed Schmucke,  in  his  joy  at  having 
near  him  a  man  to  whom  Pons  was  dear. 

"  Will  you  hold  one  of  the  tassals  of  the 
pall,  monsieur?"  said  the  master  of  the 
ceremonies.  "We  shall  then  have  four 
pall-bearers." 

For  the  master  of  the  ceremonies  had 
easily  prevailed  upon  the  tout  of  Messrs. 
Sonet  &  Co.  to  be  one  of  the  pall-bearers. 
That  worthy,  even  had  he  been  reluctant 
to  undertake  the  office,  could  not  have 
resisted  its  tempting  perquisites  —  the 
splendid  pair  of  gloves  ! 

"  It  is  now  a  quarter  to  eleven !  We 
must  really  go  down  at  once  ;  the  priests 
are  waiting  for  us,"  said  the  master  of 
the  ceremonies. 

Thereupon  the  six  persons  we  have 
named  began  to  march  downstairs. 

"Take  care  to  secure  the  outer  door 
and  remain  in  the  apartments,"  said  the 
atrocious  Fraisier  to  the  two  women  who 


COUSIN    PONS. 


197 


were  standing  on  the  landing;  "espe- 
cially if  you  want  to  oe  appointed  custo- 
dian, Madame  Cantinet.  Ah  !  ah  !  'tis 
forty  sous  a  day  in  your  pocket !  " 

Through  one  of  those  coincidences 
which  are  by  no  means  infrequent  in 
Paris,  the  entrance  gateway  was  en- 
cumbered by  two  catafalques — and  there- 
fore by  two  funerals — that  of  Cibot,  the 
defunct  porter,  and  that  of  Pons.  No 
one  visited  the  brilliant  catafalque  of  the 
friend  of  the  Arts,  there  to  pay  a  tribute 
of  affection  ;  whereas  all  the  porters  in 
the  neighborhood  crowded  in,  to  sprinkle 
\\o\y  water  on  the  mortal  remains  of  the 
deceased  porter.  This  contrast  between 
the  throng  attendant  on  the  funeral  of 
Cibot  and  the  solitude  that  surrounded 
the  body  of  Pons  was  conspicuous,  not 
only  at  the  door  of  the  house,  but  also  in 
the  street.  There  the  only  mourner  who 
followed  Pons's  coffin  was  Schmucke,  who 
was  suppoi'ted  by  an  undertaker's  man  ;' 
for  he  staggered  with  weakness  at  every 
step.  From  the  Rue  de  Normandie  to 
the  Rue  d'Orleans  (in  which  street  the 
church  of  St.  Francis  is  situated)  the 
two  funerals  passed  along,  between  two 
hedges  of  inquisitive  spectators ;  for  in 
this  district,  as  we  have  already  re- 
marked, every  incident  is  an  event. 
Hence  the  splendid  white  hearse,  with 
its  depending  scutcheon  on  which  a  large 
P  was  embroidered,  and  its  solitary 
mourner,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  plain 
hearse  adopted  in  funerals  of  the  cheapest 
class,  with  its  accompanying  crowd,  on 
the  other,  failed  not  to  elicit  considera- 
ble comment.  Fortunate  it  was  that 
Schmucke,  dazed  by  the  faces  that 
thronged  the  windows,  and  \)y  the  two 
long  rows  of  congregated  quidnuncs,  was 
deaf  to  every  word  that  was  uttered,  and 
saw  the  vast  concourse  only  through  a 
haze  of  tears. 

"  Ah  !  'tis  the  Nut-Cracker,"  exclaimed 
one,  "  the  musician,  you  know  ! " 

"  Who  are  the  pall-bearers,  then  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  nothing  but  actors  !  " 

"See,  there  is  poor  Daddy  Cibofs  fu- 
neral!  Well,  there's  one  hard-working 
man  the  less !  What  a  cormorant  for 
work  he  was  I " 


"  Ay,  he  never  went  out  at  all ! " 

'•No,  he  didn't  keep  Saint-Monday." 

"Ah  !  how  fond  he  was  of  his  wife,  to 
be  sure  I  " 

"Yes,  indeed;  she's  greatly  to  be 
pitied  ! " 

Remonehcq,  following  in  the  wake  of 
his  victim's  hearse,  received  many  a  con- 
dolence for  the  loss  of  his  neighbor. 

Thus  the  two  funerals  reached  the 
church.  There  Cantinet  co-operated  with 
the  Swiss  to  shield  Schmucke  from  the 
importunities  of  the  mendicants.  Ville- 
mot  had  promised  the  legatee  that  he 
should  not  be  molested,  and  Villemot, 
true  to  his  word,  kept  a  watchful  e\'e 
upon  his  client,  and  disbursed  all  the 
necessary  expenses.  The  escort  of  from 
sixty  to  eighty  persons,  that  accompanied 
the  humble  hearse  containing  the  corpse 
of  Cibot,  followed  it  to  the  cemetery. 
When  Pons's  funeral  issued  from  the 
church  it  was  followed  by  four  mourning 
coaches — one  for  the  clergj^  and  the  three 
others  for  the  relatives  of  the  deceased. 

But  one  carriage  was  quite  sufficient : 
for  the  tout  of  Messrs.  Sonet  &  Co.  had 
rushed  off,  while  the  funeral  service  was 
in  progress,  to  report  the  departure  of 
the  procession  to  M.  Sonet,  in  order  that 
he  might  be  in  readiness  to  present  the 
design  for  the  monument  and  an  estimate 
of  its  cost  to  the  universal  legatee  as  he 
quitted  the  cemetery.  Fraisier,  Villemot, 
Schmucke,  and  Topinard  occupied  one 
coach ;  the  other  coaches,  instead  of  re- 
turning to  the  undertaker's,  drove  to 
Pere-Lachaise,  empty.  Tliis  superfluous 
procession  of  unoccupied  carriages  is  a 
verj^  common  phenomenon.  When  the 
deceased  is  a  person  unknown  to  fame, 
and  there  is  consequently  but  a  sparse 
collection  of  mourners,  there  are  always 
too  many  mourning  coaches.  Deep,  in- 
deed, mu.st  have  been  the  love  inspired  by 
the  dead,  during  their  lifetime,  to  induce 
the  world  of  Paris — Paris,  whore  every 
one  would  like  to  add  a  twentj'-flfth  hour 
to  the  day— to  follow  a  friend  or  a  reki- 
tive  as  far  as  the  cemetery !  But  the 
drivers  would  lose  their  drink-money  if 
they  shirked  their  duties;  so,  full  or 
empty,  the   coaches  go  from  the  hous>e 


198 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


to  the  church,  from  the  church  to  the 
cemetery,  and  from  the  cemetery  back 
ag-ain  to  the  house ;  and  there  the  drivers 
claim  their  drink-mone3'.  The  number  of 
persons  to  ^vhom  Death  is  a  drinking-- 
trough  is  inconceivable.  When  the  fu- 
neral ceremony  is  over,  beadles,  sextons, 
sprinklers  of  holy  water,  paupers,  coffln- 
bearers,  coachmen,  grave-diggers  —  all 
these  absorbent  organisms  —  scramble, 
distended  with  liquor,  into  a  hearse  and 
are  driven  away. 

From  the  door  of  the  church  (where 
the  legatee,  as  soon  as  he  appeared,  was 
assailed  by  a  swarm  of  beggars — whom 
the  Swiss  immediately  repelled)  to  the 
cemetery  of  Pere-Lachaise,  poor  Schmucke 
was  borne  along  much  as  criminals  used 
to  be  dragged  from  the  palace  to  the 
Place  de  Greve.  He  seemed  to  be  fol- 
lowing his  own  funeral,  as  he  sat  in  the 
coach  clasping  the  hand  of  Topinard,  the 
only  man  who  shared  his  genuine  sorrow 
for  the  death  of  Pons.  Topinard,  mean- 
while deeply  impressed  with  the  lienor  of 
ha\Tiig  been  selected  as  one  of  Pons's 
pall-bearers — Topinard,  pleased  with  his 
ride— Topinard,  the  proud  possessor  of  a 
pair  of  white  deerskin  gloves,  was  begin- 
ning to  regard  the  day  of  Pons's  funeral 
as  one  of  the  red-letter  days  of  his  exist- 
ence. Schmucke,  plunged  in  the  pro- 
foundest  sorrow,  but  deriving  some  sup- 
port from  the  contact  of  the  hand  whose 
owner  had  a  heart,  'passively  submitted 
to  be  driven  to  the  cemetery^ust  as  an 
ill-starred  calf  is  trundled  unresisting  to 
the  shambles.  Now,  those  who  have  had 
the  misfortune  to  follow  many  a  relative 
to  the  last  resting-place,  are  well  aware 
that,  during  the  journey  from  the  church 
to  the  grave,  all  hypocrisy  is  laid  aside ; 
for  the  distance  to  be  traversed  is  fre- 
quently considerable— as,  for  example,  it 
often  is  between  the  church  where  the 
service  has  been  performed  and  the 
Cimetierc  de  I'Est,  which  is  conspicuous 
among  Parisian  cemeteries,  as  the  focus 
of  every  kind  of  variety  and  pomp,  and  is 
crowded  with  sumptuous  sepulchers.  The 
conversation  is  started  by  the  indifferent ; 
and,  in  the  end,  the  saddest  listen  to  and 
are  amused  bv  it. 


"  Monsieur  le  President  had  gone  down 
to  court,  when  the  procession  set  forth," 
quoth  Fraisier  to  Villemot,  "  and  I 
deemed  it  unnecessary  to  call  him  away 
from  his  duties  at  the  palace,  since  he 
could  not  have  joined  us  in  time.  Inas- 
much as  he — the  natural  and  lawful  heir 
— has  been  disinherited  in  favor  of  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke,  I  thought  it  quite  suf- 
ficient that  he  should  be  represented  by 
his  proxy."  On  hearing  these  words 
Topinard    pricked   up  his  ears. 

"  Who  was  that  queer  fellow  who  held 
the  fourth  tassel  ?  "  said  Fraisier  to  Ville- 
mot. 

'•  Oh  !  he's  the  tout  of  a  firm  of  tomb- 
stone contractors  who  want  to  get  an 
oi'der  for  a  tomb  to  be  adorned  with  three 
marble  fig-ures  representing  Music,  Paint- 
ing and  Sculpture,  weei^ing  over  the  grave 
of  the  deceased." 

"Not  at  all  a  bad  idea,"  replied  Frai- 
sier. "The  old  fellow  certainly  deserves 
it ;  but  such  a  monument  as  that  will 
cost  seven  or  eight  thousand  francs." 

"Oh!  no  doubt  it  will." 

"  If  Monsieur  Schmucke  gives  the  order 
it  cannot  in  an^^  way  affect  the  estate ; 
for  such  expenses  as  those  would  soon  eat 
up  a  succession." 

"  It  might  give  rise  to  an  action ;  but 
you  would  win  it." 

"Well,  then,"  replied  Fraisier,  "it  is 
his  lookout !  It  would  be  a  good  trick  to 
play  these  contractors,"  whispered  he  to 
Villemot ;  "  for  if  the  wUl  be  set  aside, 
as  I  warrant  it  will  be — or  if  no  will  were 
forthcoming,  who  is  to  pay  them?" 

Villemot  greeted  this  suggestion  with  a 
monke3'"s  grin ;  and  thereupon  the  man- 
aging clerk  of  Monsieur  Tabareauand  the 
man  of  law  proceeded  to  hold  a  whispered 
conversation  tog-ether.  But,  spite  of  their 
precautions  and  the  rumbling  of  the  coach, 
the  supernumerary,  versed  as  he  was  in 
all  the  intrigues  of  the  greenroom,  guessed 
that  the  two  limbs  of  law  were  bent  upon 
involving'  the  poor  German  in  some  diffi- 
culty, and  finally  caught  the  significant 
word,  Clichy !  Thereupon,  the  honest 
and  worthy  underling  of  the  theater  re- 
solved that  he  would  take  Pons's  friend 
under  his  wing. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


199 


On  reaching  the  cemetery — in  which 
Villemot,  aided  hy  the  tout  of  Messrs. 
Sonet  &  Co.,  had  bought  from  the  mu- 
nicipality a  plot  of  ground  about  ten  feet 
three-quarters  square,  on  the  plea  that 
he  was  about  to  erect  thereon  a  splendid 
monument — Schmucke  was  conducted,  hy 
the  master  of  the  ceremonies,  through  a 
crowd  of  sightseers,  to  the  grave  into 
which  Pons's  remains  were  about  to  be 
lowered ;  but  at  sight  of  the  rectangular 
hole,  over  which  hung  Pons's  coffin,  sus- 
pended on  ropes  which  four  men  held  in 
their  hands,  while  the  priest  uttered  the 
final  prayer,  the  hapless  German  was  so 
intensely  affected  that  he  swooned. 


XXIX. 


WHAT   IS   CALLED   "OPENING   A    SUCCES- 
SION"   CONSISTS   IN    ''CLOSING"' 
EVERY   DOOR. 

ToPiNARD,  the  tout  of  Messrs.  Sonet  & 
Co.,  and  M.  Sonet  himself  carried  the  poor 
German  into  the  marble-merchants'  es- 
tablishment, where  he  received  the  most 
assiduous  and  generous  attention  at  the 
hands  of  Madame  Sonet  and  Madame 
Vitelot,  the  wife  of  Monsieur  Sonet's 
partner.  Topinard  stood  his  ground, 
for  he  had  seen  Fraisier  (whose  face 
seemed  to  him  to  savor  strongly  of  the 
gallows)  in  close  converse  with  the  tout  of 
Messrs.  Sonet  &  Co. 

After  the  lapse  of  an  hour — that  is  to 
say,  at  about  half-past  two — the  poor 
harmless  German  recovered  conscious- 
ness. Schmucke  thought  that  he  had 
been  dreaming  for  the  last  two  days, 
and  that  he  would  wake  to  find  Pons 
still  alive.  His  forehead  was  piled  with 
wet  cloths;  he  was  plied  with  smelling- 
salts  and  vinegar,  till  at  length  he  opened 
his  eyes.  Then  Madame  Sonet  made  him 
drink  some  good  strong  broth;  for  the 
marble-merchants  had  not  omitted  to 
set  the  pot-au-feu  upon  the  fire. 

"  We  don't  often  come  across  clients 
who  feel  so  keenly  as  all  that ;  still  we 
do  occasionally  meet  them,  once  in  two 


j'ears  or  so  ! "'  said  the  lady.  At  last 
Schmucke  began  to  talk  about  getting 
back  to  the  Rue  de  Normandie. 

Thereupon  Sonet  produced  the  design 
and  said:  "This,  monsieur,  is  the  drawing 
which  Vitelot  has  made  expressly  for  you; 
he  sat  up  all  night  over  it !  But  he  was 
in  a  happy  vein.  It  will  be  a  very  fine 
monumenet — " 

"  It  will  be  one  of  the  finest  in  Pere- 
Lachaise !  "  cried  little  Madame  Sonet. 
"  But  then  it  is  yonv  duty  to  show  respect 
to  the  memory  of  a  friend  who  has  left 
you  his  whole  fortune — " 

Now,  this  design,  which  was  supposed 
to  have  been  made  expressly  for  Pons, 
had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  prepared 
for  De  Marsaj',  the  celebrated  minister  : 
but  his  widow,  being  desirous  that  his 
monument  should  be  designed  by  Stid- 
mann,  the  design  prepared  by  these  manu- 
factui'ers  of  monuments  was  rejected  ;  for 
a  commonplace  monument  was  disgusting 
to  the  widow.  The  three  figures  were 
originally  intended  to  r#present  the  three 
days  of  the  Revolution  of  July,  during 
which  the  ^eat  /minister  came  to  the 
front.  By  introducing  sundry  modifica- 
tions, Sonet  and  Vitelot  had  since  con- 
trived to  make  the  three  glorious  days 
represent  the  Army,  Finance,  and  the 
Family,  for  the  monument  of  Charles 
Keller— a  monument  which  also  was  in- 
trusted to  the  skill  of  Stidmann.  For  the 
last  eleven  years  had  this  design  been 
from  time  to  time  adapted  to  meet  the 
varj'ing  predicaments  of  several  bereaved 
families ;  but  by  counter-drawing,  Vite- 
lot had  managed  to  transform  the  three 
figures  into  the  genii  of  Music,  Sculpture 
and  Painting. 

"  It's  a  mere  trifle  if  you  take  into  con- 
sideration the  amount  of  workmanship 
and  the  setting  up;  but  it  won't  take 
more  than  six  months,"  said  Vitelot. 
"Here  is  the  estimate  and  specification, 
monsieur  —  seven  thousand  francs,  ex- 
clusive of  the  workmen's  wages." 

"  If  monsieur  would  like  it  in  marble."' 
chimed  in  Sonet,  whose  specialty  was 
marble,  "  it  will  come  td Welve  thousand 
francs,  and  monsieur  will  immortalize  his 
friend  and  self  together." 


200 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  I  have  just  this  moment  heard  that 
the  will  will  be  disputed,  and  that  the 
heirs  will  be  restored  to  their  rights," 
whispered  Topinard  to  Vitelot ;  "you 
had  better  go  and  see  Monsieur  le  Presi- 
dent Camusot,  for  tiiis  poor  inoffensive 
creature  won't  have  a  farthing." 

"  You  are  always  bringing  us  clients 
of  that  kind !  "  said  Madame  Vitelot, 
turning  round  upon  and  beginning  to 
quarrel  with  the  tout. 

Leaning  on  Topinard's  arm,  Schmucke 
walked  back  to  the  Rue  de  Normandie, 
for  the  mourning  coaches  had  already 
driven  back  thither. 

"Do  not  leaf  me !"  said  Schmucke  to 
Topinard,  who  so  soon  as  he  had  confided 
the  poor  musician  to  the  care  of  Madame 
Sauvage,  wanted  to  get  away. 

"  It  is  four  o'clock,  my  dear  Monsieur 
Schmucke,  and  I  must  go  home  to  dinner 
—my  wife,  who  is  a  box-keepei',  won't 
know  what  has  become  of  me.  You 
know,  the  theater  opens  at  a  quarter 
to  six." 

"  Yez,  I  know — but  conzider,  I  am  alone 
in  de  vorld,  widout  a^friend.  You,  who 
have  mourned  for  Bons,  gif  me  a  little 
guidance ;  I  am  in  profound  darkness, 
and  Bons  said  that  I  was  zurrounded  by 
rogues." 

"  Yes,  I  very  soon  found  that  out ;  I 
have  just  saved  you  from  being  sent  to 
Clichy  !  " 

'•  Gligy  ?  "  exclaimed  Schmucke  ;  "  I 
don't  understand  you." 

"  Poor  man  !  Well!  Make  your  mind 
easy ;  I  will  come  and  see  you.  Good- 
by." 

"Atieu!  for  a  little  while!"  said 
Schmuche,  sinking  down  as  if  he  were 
weaiy  unto  death. 

"Adieu  !  mossieu  !"  quoth  Dame  Sauv- 
age to  Topinard,  in  a  manner  that  made 
a  forcible  impression  on  the  supernumer- 
ary. 

"  Ah !  what  is  the  matter  with  you, 
Mrs.  Housel^eeper  ?  "  cried  Topinard  jo- 
cosely. "There  j'ou  stand  like  a  villain 
in  a  melodrama." 

"Villain  youreelf !  "  quoth  the  dame. 
"  Why  do  you  come  here  interfering .'  I 
suppose  you'll  be  wanting  to  undertake 


Monsieur  Schmucke's  business ;   and   to 
bleed  him  ?  " 

"  Bleed  him,  indeed  !  —  your  humble 
servant !  "  —  retorted  Topinard,  proudl3% 
"  I  am  but  a  poor  super  at  the  theater, 
but  I  love  artists,  and,  let  me  tell  you,  I 
have  never  asked  any  one  for  a  farthing  ! 
Have  I  asked  you  to  give  me  anything  ? 
Do  I  owe  you  anything — eh,  old  girl?  " 

"  You  are  a  super,  and  your  name  is — 
what  ?  "  asked  the  virago. 

"  Topinard,  very  much  at  your  ser- 
vice— " 

"Many  thanks  to  you,"  said  Dame 
Sauvage,  "and  present  my  compliments 
to  medeme  if  you  are  a  married  man, 
mosieur.  I  know  all  I  wanted  to  know, 
now." 

"What  ails  you,  my  beauty' ? "  said 
Madame  Cantinet,  coming  forward. 

"  Wl\at  ails  me,  little  one  ?  Whj'  just 
this,  that  you  must  stay  here  and  look 
after  the  dinner,  while  I  proceed  to  put 
my  foot  into  that  gentleman's  affairs — 
tliat's  what's  the  matter  with  me  !  " 

"He's  down  below  talking  to  poor 
Madame  Cibot,  who's  crying  her  very 
eyes  out,"  replied  Dame  Cantinet. 

Dame  Sauvag-e  ran  downstairs  so  hasti- 
ly that  t\\ey  trembled  beneath  lier  feet. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  she  to  Fraisier,  draw- 
ing him  some  little  distance  away  from 
Dame  Cibot,  and  pointing  to  Topinard  as 
the  supernumerary  passed  out,  proud  of 
having  already  discharged  the  debt  he 
owed  his  benefactor,  by  emploj'ing  a 
greenroom  artifice  —  for  every  one  con- 
nected with  the  stage  has  a  certain  fund 
of  wit  and  humor — to  save  the  friend  of 
that  benefactor  from  falling  into  a  trap. 
In  fact  the  supernumerary  secretly  re- 
solved that  he  would  protect  the  unsus- 
pecting musician  of  his  orchestra  against 
the  snares  that  would  be  laid  for  him. 

"  You  see  that  little  wretch  ?  "  pursued 
Dame  Sauvage,  "  'tis  a  sort  of  a  kind  of 
an  honest  man  who  wants  to  poke  his 
nose  into  Monsieur  Schmucke's  affairs — " 

"  Who  is  he  ?  "  asked  Fraisier. 

"Oh  !  a  mere  nobody — " 

"  In  business,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  mere  nobody." 

"Well,"  said  the  dame,  "he's  an  un- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


201 


.  derling  at  the  theater ;  his  name  in  Topi- 
nard." 

"  Good  ! "  said  Fraisier,  "go  on  as  you 
have  begun,  Madame  Sauvage,  and  you 
will  have  your  tobacco-shop." 

Thereupon,  Fraisier  resumed  his  con- 
versation -with  Madame  Cibot — "  I  say 
therefore,  my  dear  client,  that  you  have 
been  placing  a  double  game  with  us,  and 
that  we  are  in  no  way  bound  to  keep 
terms  with  a  partner  who  deceives  us." 

"And  in  what  way  have  I  deceived 
you,  pray?"  said  Dame  Cibot,  with  her 
arms  akimbo.  "Do  you  think  that  you're 
a-going  to  frighten  me  mth  your  vinegar 
looks  and  freezing  airs  ?  You're  just  try- 
ing to  forge  excuses  for  going  away  from 
your  word,  and  you  call  yourself  a  gentle- 
man. Shall  I  tell  you  what  you  are  ? 
You're  a  scamp.  Yes,  yes,  you  may 
scratch  your  arm  as  much  as  jo\x  please  ; 
but  put  that  in  your  fob — " 

"  Now  let's  have  no  angry  words,  my 
pet,"  said  Fraisier.  "  Listen  to  me  ! 
You  have  feathered  j-our  nest.  This 
very  morning  while  the  preparations  for 
the  funeral  were  in  train,  I  found  this 
duplicate  catalogue,  which  is,  through- 
out, in  the  handwriting  of  Monsieur  Pons ; 
and,  by  the  merest  chance,  my  eye  en- 
countered this  ;  "  and  opening  the  cata- 
logue, Fraisier  read  aloud  these  words  : 

"  '  No.  7.  Magnificent  portrait  painted 
on  marble,  by  Sebastian  del  Piombo  in 
1546,  sold  by  a  family  which  had  carried 
it  off  from  the  cathedral  of  Terni.  This 
portrait,  the  companion  to  which  was  a 
bishop,  bought  by  an  Englishman,  repre- 
sents a  Knight  of  Malta  praying,  and  was 
placed  over  the  tomb  of  the  Rossi  family'. 
But  for  its  date  the  picture  might  be  as- 
cribed to  Raphael.  This  little  painting 
appears  to  me  to  be  superior  to  the  por- 
trait of  Baccio  Bandinelli  in  the  museum, 
which  is  somewhat  faded,  whereas  the 
Knight  of  Malta  is  extremel3'  fresh  in 
consequence  of  the  preservation  of  the 
coloring   on  the   Lavagna    (Slate).' 

"I  found,  on  examination,"  resumed 
Fraisier,  "that  place  No.  7  was  occupied 
by  the  portrait  of  a  lady  (signed  Char- 
din),  which  had  no  No.  7 !  While  the 
master  of  the  ceremonies  was  making  up 


his  quorum  of  pall-bearers,  I  verified  the 
pictures,  and  there  are  eight  ordinary 
pictures,  without  numbers,  in  the  places 
allotted  to  works  which  were  described 
as  masterpieces  by  the  late  Monsieur 
Pons,  and  are  now  no  longer  to  be  found. 
Finally"  there  is  missing  a  little  picture  on 
wood,  by  Metzu,  which  is  described  as  a 
chef-d'oeuvre — " 

"  Was  J  the  custodian  of  the  pictures  ?  " 
asked  Dame  Cibot. 

"  No ;  but  j'ou  were  the  confidential 
housekeeper  in  charge  of  Monsieur  Pons's 
establishment,  and  if  robbery  has  been 
committed — " 

"Robbery  indeed!  Let  me  just  n'in- 
form  you,  monsieur,  that  the  pictures  were 
sold  by  Monsieur  Schmucke,  in  obedience 
to  the  directions  of  Monsieur  Pons,  n'and 
to  supply  his  wants." 

'•  To  whom  were  thej^  sold  ?  " 

"•  To  Messieurs  EUe  Magus  and  Remo- 
nencq." 

"  For  how  much  ?  " 

"Why,  I  really  don't  remember." 

"  Now  listen  to  me,  my  dear  Madame 
Cibot,"  pursued  Fraisier.  "You  have 
feathered  your  nest,  and  feathered  it  well  I 
I  shall  keep  my  eye  upon  you ;  I  have  you 
in  my  power.  Serve  me,  and  I  will  hold 
my  tongue.  In  any  case,  you  under- 
stand, you  mustn't  expect  to  receive  any- 
thing from  Monsieur  le  President  Camu- 
sot,  since  you  have  thought  fit  to  plunder 
him." 

"  I  felt  quite  sure  as  it  would  aU  tuni 
to  pudding  bones,  as  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned, my  dear  Monsieur  Fraisier,"  re- 
plied Dame  Cibot,  mollifled  by  the  words 
I  ivill  hold  my  tongue. 

"  There  you  are  now,"  said  Remonencq, 
coming  to  the  rescue,  "  picking  a  quarrel 
with  madame  ;  It  isn't  right.  The  sale  of 
the  pictures  was  arranged,  at  Monsieur 
Pons's  free  wiU  and  pleasure,  between  him- 
self and  Magus  and  me  ;  it  took  us  three 
days  to  come  to  terms  with  the  deceased, 
who  positively  dreamed  about  his  pictures ! 
We  have  formal  receipts  for  the  money, 
and  if,  as  always  happens,  we  gave  ma- 
dame a  few  forty-franc  pieces,  she  had 
no  more  than  wo  are  in  the  habit  of  giv- 
ing to  the  servants  of  the  gentry -folks 


202 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


witli  whom  we  do  a  bit  of  business.  Ah  ! 
my  dear  sir,  if  you  think  as  you  are  im- 
posing on  a  helpless  woman,  you'll  find 
youi'self  very  much  mistaken  !  Do  you 
take  me,  Mr.  Pettifogger?  Monsieur 
Magus  rules  the  market,  and  if  you  don't 
give  way  to  madame,  if  you  don't  give 
her  what  you  promised  her,  I'll  he  at 
your  heels  when  the  collection  is  sold,  and 
you'll  see  what  you'll  lose  if  you  have 
Monsieiu-  Magus  and  mo  against  you— 
us  as  can  raise  all  the  dealers  against 
you.  Instead  of  seven  or  eight  hundred 
thousand  francs,  j'ou  won't  get  even  so 
much  as  two  hundred  thousand  !  " 

"  All  right !  All  right !  We'll  see  about 
that!  We  won't  sell  at  all,"  said  Frai- 
sier,  "or,  if  we  do,  we'll  sell  in  London." 

"  We  know  London  quite  well  ! "  said 
Remonencq  ;  "  and  Monsieur  Magus  has 
quite  as  much  influence  there  as  he  has  in 
Paris." 

"  Good-by,  madame,  I  will  settle  your 
business  for  j'ou,"  said  Fraisier,  "unless 
3'ou  continue  to  do  exactly  what  I  tell 
you,"  he  added. 

"You  little  pickpocket—" 

"Take  care,"  said  Fraisier,  "I  shall 
soon  be  a  juge  de  paix." 

Thus,  with  mutual  menaces,  the  force  of 
which  was  correctly  appreciated  by  each 
of  them,  did  these  two  worthies  part. 

"Thank  you,  Remonencq,"  said  Dame 
Cibot.  "  It's  very  pleasant  for  a  poor 
widow  to  find  some  one  n'as'U  take  her 
part." 

That  evening,  at  about  ten  o'clock, 
Gaudissard  summoned  to  his  private 
room  the  attendant  on  the  orchestra  of 
the  theater.  When  Topinard  presented 
himself,  the  manager  was  standing  with 
his  back  to  the  fire-place,  in  a  Napoleonic 
attitude  which  he  had  cultivated  since  he 
had  assumed  the  direction  of  a  host  of 
actors,  dancers,  figuranti,  musicians,  and 
machinists,  and  been  called  upon  to  deal 
with  authors.  His  habit  was  to  pass  his 
right  hand  beneath  his  waistcoat  and 
grasp  the  left  brace,  while  he  presented 
the  three-quarter  face  and  gazed  at  va- 
cancy. 

"  How  now,  Topinard  ;  have  you  a  pri- 
vate income?  " 


"No,  monsieur."  ; 

"  Then  you  are  on  the  lookout  for  a 
better  place  ?  "  inquired  the  manager. 

'•No,  monsieur — "  replied  the  super- 
numerary, turning  pale. 

"  What  the  devil !  your  wife  is  box- 
keeper  on  the  first  tier.  I  showed  my 
respect  for  my  ruined  predecessor  by 
retaining  her  services.  I  gave  you  day- 
work  by  making  you  lamp-cleaner  to  the 
greenroom,  and  you  have  the  musical 
scores  to  look  tifter  into  the  bargain. 
Nor  is  that  all.  You  have  an  allowance 
of  twenty  sous  to  represent  the  monsters 
and  lead  the  troops  of  devils  when  we 
bring  hell  upon  the  stage  !  Your  posi- 
tion is  the  ewxy  of  all  the  supers  in  the 
house,  and  yo\x  are  regarded  with  no  fav- 
orable e^'e  by  your  colleagues,  my  friend. 
You  have  enemies  in  the  theater — " 

"  EHemies  !  "  exclaimed  Topinard. 

" — And  you  have  three  children,  the 
eldest  of  whom  plays  children's  parts, 
and  has  an  allowance  of  fifty  cen- 
times !— " 

"Monsieur — " 

" — ^Let  me  speak,"  cried  Gaudissard, 
in  a  voice  of  thunder.  "  Holding  the 
position  you  do,  yo\x  want  to  leave  the 
theater — " 

"Monsieur — " 

"  — You  must  needs  poke  your  nosa  into 
business  matters  and  thrust  your  finger 
into  succession-pies  !  Why,  you  luckless 
wight,  you'll  be  crushed  like  an  egg.  I 
have  a  patron  in  the  person  of  his  Excel- 
lency Monseigneur  le  Comte  Popinot — a 
man  of  talent  and  of  high  character, 
whom  the  king  has  been  wise  enough  to 
summon  to  his  council-table.  Well,  this 
statesman  this  first-rate  politician — I  am 
speaking  of  Count  Popinot — has  married 
his  son  to  the  daughter  of  the  President 
de  Marville,  one  of  the  most  estimable  and 
one  of  the  most  esteemed  of  the  judges  of 
the  highest  grade,  one  of  the  luminaries 
of  the  court  at  the  palace — ^_you  know  the 
palace,  don't  you  ?  Well,  then,  this  Mon- 
sieur de  Marville  is  the  natural  heir  of  his 
cousin  Pons,  our  former  conductor,  whose 
funeral  you  attended  this  morning.  Now 
observe ;  I  don't  blame  you  for  having 
gone  to  pay  this  last  tribute  of  respect  to 


CO U SIX    PONS. 


203 


the  poor  fellow ;  but  you  will  lose  ■  your 
berth  if  you  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  our 
worthy  Monsieur  Schmucke,  toward  whom 
I  entertain  the  most  friendly  feelings,  but 
who  will  shortly  find  himself  placed  in  a 
very  delicate  position  in  relation  to  the 
natural  heirs  of  Pons.  And  since  this 
German  is  of  very  little  consequence  to 
me,  while  the  president  and  Count  Popi- 
not  are  of  a  g-reat  deal  of  consequence  to 
me,  I  recommend  you  to  leave  the  worthy 
German  to  unravel  his  own  affairs.  The 
Germans  have  a  special  Providence  of 
their  own,  and  you  would  be  entirely  out 
of  place  as  a  subaltern  deity.  So  remain 
as  you  are  —  a  super!  You  can't  do 
better ! " 

"Enough,  Monsieur  le  Directeur,"  said 
Topinard,  deeply  grieved.  Thus  was 
Schmucke,  who  expected  that  the  humble 
supernumerary,  the  only  being,  himself  ex- 
cepted, who  had  shed  a  tear  over  Pons's 
grave,  would  pay  him  a  visit  on  the  mor- 
row, deprived  of  the  onlj'  protector  that 
chance  had  sent  him.  When  that  mor- 
row dawned  upon  the  luckless  German 
and  he  gazed  upon  the  empty  rooms,  he 
felt  the  immensity  of  the  loss  that  he  had 
sustained.  On  the  two  preceding  days, 
the  hurry  of  events  and  the  turmoil  that 
death  brings  in  its  train  had  involved 
Schmucke  in  the  bustle  and  commotion 
that  furnishes  distraction  to  the  eye. 
But  in  the  silence  that  follows  the  burial 
of  a  friend,  a  father,  a  son,  or  a  woman 
who  was  dear  to  us — the  dull,  cold  silence 
of  the  morrow— there  is  something  that 
is  terrible — something  that  is  icy.  Poor 
Schmucke  was  drawn  to  Pons's  chamber 
by  an  irresistible  attraction ;  but,  unable 
to  endure  the  sight  of  the  apartment,  he 
immediately  withdrew,  and  returned  to 
the  dining-room,  where  Madame  Sauvage 
was  laying  breakfast.  Schmucke  placed 
himself  at  the  table,  but  could  eat  noth- 
ing. Suddenly  there  came  a  smart  ring 
at  the  bell,  and  three  men  in  black  en- 
tered, unopposed  either  \)y  Madame  Can- 
tinet  or  Madame  Sauvage.  This  trio  con- 
sisted of  Monsieur  Vitel  the  juge  de  paix, 
his  registrar  and — Fraisier,  who  now,  in 
consequence  of  the  check  he  had  sus- 
tained, through  the  execution  of  a  formal 


will  which  destroyed  that  formidable 
weapon— the  testament  that  he  had  so 
audaciously  stolen— was  more  lean  and 
hungry  than  ever. 

"  We  have  come  to  affix  the  seals  of  the 
law  here,  monsieur,"  said  the  juge  de 
paix  to  Schmucke,  mildly. 

Schnuicke,  to  whom  these  words  were 
so  much  Greek,  cast  a  timorous  glance  at 
the  three  men. 

"We  have  come  at  the  instance  of 
Monsieur  Fraisier,  advocate,  the  pro.x^' 
of  Monsieur  Camusot  de  Marville,  who  is 
the  natural  heir  to  his  cousin  the  late 
Monsieur  Pons,"  added  the  registrar. 

"The  collections  are  there,  in  the  large 
salon  and  in  the  bedroom  of  the  deceased," 
said  Fraisier. 

"Well,  then,  let  us  go  in,"  said  the 
juge  de  paix.  "Excuse  us,  monsieur; 
pray  go  on  with  your  breakfast ;  don't 
let  us  interfere  with  you." 

The  interruption  of  these  three  men  in 
black  had  frozen  the  poor  German  with 
terror.      • 

"This  gentleman,"  said  Fraisier,  dart- 
ing at  Schmucke  one  of  those  poisonous 
glances  wherewith  he  was  wont  to  mes- 
merize his  victims,  just  as  a  spider  mes- 
merizes a  fly,  "this  gentleman,  who  has 
managed  to  procure  the  making  of  a  will 
par  devant  notaire  in  his  favor,  must  be 
fully  prepared  for  some  opposition  from 
the  family  of  the  testator.  A  family  docs 
not  passively  submit  to  spoliation  at  the 
hands  of  a  foreigner;  and  we  shall  see 
which  will  be  victorious,  monsieur ;  fraud 
and  corruption  or  the  family !  We,  as 
the  natural  heirs,  are  entitled  to  demand 
the  afHxatiou  of  the  seals  ;  and  affixed  the 
seals  shall  be;  and,  moreover,  it  is  my 
intention  to  see  that  this  protective  meas- 
ure is  carried  out  with  the  utmost  possible 
rigor  ;  and  so  it  shall  be." 

"Mein  Got!  Mein  Got!  what  zin 
againzt  Heaven  have  I  gommitted  ? " 
cried  the  inoffensive  Schmucke. 

"  You  are  the  talk  of  the  whole  house,'" 
said  Dame  Sauvage.  "  ^\1lile  you  were 
asleep,  there  came  a  little  stripling, 
dressed  in  black,  a  little  puppy  who  said 
he  was  managing  clerk  to  Monsieur  Han- 
nequin ;  and  he  insisted  on  speaking   to 


204 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


you;  but  as  you  were  asleep  and  so 
thoroughly  worn  out  with  the  ceremony 
of  yesterday,  I  told  him  that  you  had 
g-iven  a  power  of  attorney  to  Monsieur 
Villemot,  managing-  clerk  to  Monsieur 
Tabareau,  and  that  he  must  go  and  see 
Villemot  if  business  was  his  game.  '  Ah,' 
said  the  young  man,  '  so  much  the  better, 
I  shall  soon  come  to  an  understanding 
with  him.  We  are  going  to  deposit  the 
will  in  court  as  soon  as  we  have  exhibited 
it  to  the  president.'  Thereupon,  I  begged 
him  to  send  Monsieur  Villemot  to  us  as 
soon  as  ever  he  could.  Make  your  mind 
easy,  my  dear  sir,"  continued  Dame 
Sauvage,  "you'll  find  folks  to  stand  up 
for  you ;  you  won't  be  fleeced  just  as  much 
as  people  choose ;  you'll  have  some  one  on 
your  side  who  has  teeth  and  claws  !  Mon- 
sieur Villemot  will  soon  show  'em  what's 
what !  For  my  part,  I've  already  had  a 
tiff  with  that  low-lived  creature.  Mother 
Cibot,  a  portress,  forsooth,  who  must 
needs  take  upon  herself  to  pass  judg- 
ment on  her  lodgers,  and  ^'ho  main- 
tains that  you've  filched  this  fortune 
from  the  lawful  heirs,  that  you  kept 
Monsieur  Pons  shut  up  and  made  a  mere 
tool  of  him,  and  that  he  was  racing  mad. 
I  gave  her  a  fine  wigging,  the  wicked 
\iTetch,  I  promise  you  !  '  You're  a  thief 
and  a  scum  ! '  I  says  to  her,  saj's  I ;  '  and 
you'll  find  yourself  in  the  dock,  on  account 
of  what  you've  stolen  from  your  gentle- 
men.'    And  then  she  shut  her  mug." 

' '  Monsieur, ' '  said  the  registrar,  coming 
in  to  look  for  Schmucke ;  "  do  you  wish 
to  be  preseTit  while  the  seals  are  being 
affixed  in  the  chamber  of  the  deceased  ?  " 

•'Go  on!  Go  on!"  said  Schmucke. 
"  I  brczume  dat  I  shall  be  allowed  to  die 
in  beaze?  " 

"People  are  alwaj's  at  liberty  to  die," 
said  the  registrar,  "and  successions  form 
the  bulk  of  our  business ;  but  I  have  seldom 
seen  a  universal  legatee  follow  his  testator 
into  the  grave." 

''J  shall  follow  mine,'^  said  Schmucke, 
who,  after  the  repeated  blows  he  had  re- 
ceived, felt  intolerable  pangs  in  the  region 
of  the  beart. 

"Ah!  hei'e  is  Monsieur  Villemot!" 
exclaimed  Dame  Sauvage. 


"  Monsir  Fillemod,"  said  the  hapless 
German,  "will  you  rebrezent  me?" 

"  I  hurried  hither  to  tell  you  that  the 
will  is  perfectly  formal,  and  will  no  doubt 
be  upheld  by  the  court,  which  will  put  you 
in  possession  of  the  estate — and  a  fine 
fortune  you  will  have." 

"1  a  fine  fortune!"  ejaculated  Schmucke, 
horrified  at  being  suspected  of  cupidity. 

"  Meanwhile,"  said  Dame  Sauvage,  "  I 
should  like  to  know  what  the  juge  de  jiaix 
is  about,  with  his  tapers  and  little  bits  of 
tape." 

"  Oh  !  He  is  affixing  the  seals.  Come, 
Monsieur  Schmucke  ;  you  have  a  right  to 
be  present." 

"  No  !     No  !  do  you  go  dere  instead." 

"  But  wherefore  the  seals,  if  monsieur 
is  in  his  own  house,  and  if  everything  be- 
longs to  him?"  quoth  Dame  Sauvage, 
laying  down  the  law  after  the  fashion  of 
women,  who,  one  and  all,  interpret  'the 
code  according  to  their  own  good  pleasure. 

"But  monsieur  is  not  in  his  own  house, 
madame ;  he  is  in  Monsieur  Pons's  house; 
everything  will  belong  to  him,  no  doubt ; 
but  when  one  is  legatee,  one  cannot  take 
possession  of  the  property  composing  the 
succession  without  what  is  called  a  writ 
of  possession.  That  writ  is  issued  by  the 
court.  Now,  if  the  heirs  who  have  been 
ousted  from  the  succession,  by  the  volun- 
tary act  of  the  testator,  oppose  the  writ 
of  possession,  there  arises  a  lawsuit.  And, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  uncertain  to  whom  the 
succession  will  be  awarded,  all  the  goods 
and  chattels  of  the  deceased  are  placed 
under  seal,  and  the  respective  notaries  of 
the  heirs  and  legatee  will  proceed  to  take 
the  inventory  in  due  course  of  law.  Do 
you  see  ?  " 

On  hearing  this  jargon  for  the  first 
time  in  the  course  of  his  life,  Schmucke 
entirely  lost  his  head.  He  allowed  it  to 
sink  on  to  the  back  of  the  armchair  in 
which  he  was  seated ;  it  felt  so  heavy 
that  he  could  not  support  its  weight.  Vil- 
lemot, meanwhile,  entered  into  conversa- 
tion with  the  registrar,  and,  with  all  the 
imperturbability  of  the  professional  law- 
yer, looked  on  during  the  apposition  of 
the  seals — a  ceremony  which,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  relative,  is  generally  accom- 


COUSIN    PONS. 


205 


panied  bj'  a  running  commentary  of  jokes 
and  remarks  about  the  objects  which  are 
boiiig-  thus  locked  up  until  the  day  arrives 
for  their  distribution. 

At  leng1;h  the  four  men  of  law  closed 
the  door  of  the  salon,  and  returned  to  the 
dining-room,  whither  the  registrar  betook 
himself.  Schmucke  mechanically  watched 
the  operation,  which  consists  in  affixing 
the  official  seal  of  the  juge  de  paix  to 
either  end  of  a  piece  of  tape  stretched 
across  the  aperture,  in  the  case  of  folding- 
doors  ;  and  in  placing  the  seal  upon  the 
two  lips  of  the  chink,  in  the  case  of  cup- 
boards and  of  single  doors. 

"  Let's  pass  on  to  this  room,  now," 
said  Fraisier,  pointing  to  the  door  of 
Schmucke's  chamber,  which  opened  into 
the  dining-room. 

'■'  Why,  that  is  monsieur's  own  room  !" 
exclaimed  Dame  Sauvage,  rushing  for- 
ward and  placing  herself  between  the 
door  and  the  men  of  law. 

"  Here  is  the  lease  of  the  apartments," 
said  the  hideous  Fraisier.  "We  found  it 
among  the  papers,  and  it  is  not  made  out 
in  the  names  of  Messieurs  Pons  and 
Schmucke,  but  in  the  name  of  Monsieur 
Pons  alone.  The  whole  suite  of  rooms 
forms  part  of  the  succession,  and — more- 
over," added  he,  opening  the  door  %i 
Schmucke's  chamber,  "look.  Monsieur  le 
Juge  de  Paix,  the  room  is  full  of  pict- 
ures." 

"  So  it  is,"  said  the  juge  de  paix,  thus 
at  once  giving  judgment  in  favor  of  Frai- 
sier. 


XXX. 


"  STRAWBERRIES. 

"Stop  a  moment,  gentlemen,"  said 
Villemot.  "Do  you  suppose  that  j'ou 
will  be  allowed  to  turn  the  universal  lega- 
tee out  of  house  and  home,  while  his  right 
to  that  character  is  as  j'et  uncontested  ?  " 

"But  it  is  contested,"  said  Fraisier;* 
"we  oppose  the  delivery  of  the  bequest." 

"  Upon  what  grounds  ?  " 

•  The  reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  Fraisier 
meuas  a  strawberry  plant. 


"  You  shall  soon  learn,  young  man  !  " 
said  Fraisier,  satirically.  "  We  do  not, 
as  matters  now  stand,  refuse  permission 
to  the  legatee  to  remove  from  this  room 
whatever  he  is  prepared  to  claim  as  his 
own  private  property ;  but  placed  under 
seal  the  room  must  be ;  and  this  gentle- 
man may  e'en  go  and  find  shelter  where- 
ever  he  chooses." 

"Not  so,"  said  Villemot.  "Monsieur 
Schmucke  will  continue  to  occupy  his  own 
room ! " 

"How  so,  pray?  " 

"Why,"  replied  Villemot,  "I  shall  ap- 
plj^  for  an  interlocutory  judgment,  -with  a 
%aew  to  obtaining  a  declaration  that  we  are 
joint  lessees  of  these  apartments,  and  you 
sha'n't  turn  us  out  of  them.  Remove  the 
pictures ;  separate  that  which  belonged 
to  the  deceased  from  my  client's  property, 
if  you  like — but  here  my  client  shall  re- 


mam 


? " 


"Young  man ! " 

'•  I  wUl  go  away  ! "  said  the  old  musi- 
cian, whose  energies  returned  to  him  when 
he  heard  this  disgusting  altercation. 

"  You  had  better  !  "  said  Fraisier.  "  It 
will  save  you  some  expense,  for  you  would 
lose  the  day — the  lease  is  perfectly  regu- 
lar." 

"  The  lease !  the  lease  !  "  cried  Villemot. 
"What's  the  use  of  tallying  about  the 
lease.     'Tis  a  question  of   bona-fides — " 

" 'Tis  a  question  that  cannot  be  deter- 
mined, like  a  criminal  case,  b}-  the  e^^- 
dence  of  ordinary  witnesses.  Are  you 
prepared  to  involve  yourselves  in  a  maze 
of  reports,  verifications,  interlocutory 
judgments,   and   an  independent  suit?" 

"No!  no!"  cried  Schmucke;  "I  will 
degamp,  I  will  go  away." 

Schmucke's  life— though  Schmucke  him- 
self was  unconscious  of  the  fact — was  that 
of  a  cynic  philosopher,  so  extreme  was  its 
simplicity.  His  whole  outfit  consisted  of 
two  pairs  of  shoes,  one  pair  of  boots,  two 
complete  suits,  twelve  shirts,  twelve  neck- 
cloths, twelve  handkerchiefs,  four  under- 
vests,  and  a  superb  pipe,  which  Pons  had 
given  him,  together  with  an  embroid- 
ered tobacco-pouch.  Roused  by  the  fever 
of  indignation  to  an  abnormal  pitch  of 
excitement,  he  went  into  his  room,  and 


206 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


collecting  all  his  baggage,  placed  it  on  a 
chair. 

"  All  dat  is  mine  !  "  said  he,  with  a  sim- 
plicity worthy  of  Cincinnatus.  "De  biano 
also  is  mine." 

"  Madame,"  said  Fraisier  to  Dame  Sauv- 
age,  "get  some  one  to  help  you  to  re- 
move this  piano,  and  place  it  on  the 
landing." 

"You  are  a  great  deal  too  harsh,"  said 
Villemot  to  Fraisier  ;  "  Monsieur  le  Juge 
de  Paix  has  the  exclusive  right  to  order 
what  is  to  be  done  ;  he  is  sovereign  judge 
in  this  matter." 

"There  is  valuable  property  there," 
said  the  registrar,  pointing  to  the  room. 

"Besides,  monsieur  quits  the  apart- 
ments of  his  own  free  will  and  pleasure," 
remarked  t\ie  juge  de  paix. 

"I  never  saw  such  a  client  in  all  my 
life  !  "  said  the  indignant  Villemot,  turn- 
ing round  upon  Schmucke.  "  You  are  as 
soft  as  pulp." 

"  What  does  it  matter  where  one  dies," 
said  Schmucke  as  he  retired  from  the 
apartments.  "Dese  men  have  digere' 
fazes — I  will  zend  for  my  boor  trifles." 

"  Where  is  monsieur  going  to  ?  " 

"Wherever  Got  bleazes  !  "  replied  the 
universal  legatee,  with  a  gesture  of  in- 
difference that  was  sublime. 

"Take  care  to  let  me  know,"  said  Vil- 
lemot. 

"Follow  Mm,"  whispered  Fraisier  to 
the  chief  clerk. 

Madame  Cantinet  was  appointed  guard- 
ian of  the  seals ;  and  out  of  the  cash  found 
upon  the  premises  she  received  an  advance 
of  fifty  francs. 

"All  goes  well,"  remarked  Fraisier  to 
Monsieur  Vitel  as  soon  as  Schmucke  was 
out  of  hearing.  "  If  you  are  prepared  to 
resign  your  ofQce  in  my  favor,  go  and  call 
upon  Madame  de  Marville  ;  j-ou  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  arranging  matters  with 
her." 

"Your  antagonist  is  a  man  of  dough  !  " 
said  the  juge  de  paix,  pointing  to 
Schmucke,  who  had  halted  in  the  court 
to  take  one  last  long  lingering  look  at 
the  windows  of  the  apartments. 

"Yes,  the  thing  is  safe  now,"  replied 
Fraisier.     "You    need    not    hesitate   to 


marrj'  your  granddaughter  to  Poulain ; 
he  will  be  chief  phj'sician  to  the  Quinze- 
Vingts  Hospital." 

"  We'll  see  about  it !  Good-by,  Mon- 
sieur Fraisier,"  said  the  juge  de  paix, 
with  an  air  of  jolly  good-fellowship. 

"  Tliere  is  a  man  of  talent  for  you  !  " 
said  the  registrar.  "He  will  travel  far — 
tlie  knowing  dog." 

It  was  now  eleven  o'clock.  Mechani- 
cally did  the  old  German  glide  into  the 
route  that  he  and  Pons  used  to  pursue 
together;  and  as  he  paced  along  he 
thought  of  Pons :  Pons's  image  was  per- 
petually before  his  mind  ;  Pons  seemed  to 
be  walking  at  his  side. 

Just  as  Schmucke  reached  the  front  of 
his  theater,  out  popped  Topinard,  who 
had  just  finished  cleaning  the  lamps  of 
all  the  brackets.  While  thus  engaged  he 
had  been  pondering  over  the  t^'ranny  of 
the  manager. 

"Ah !  dis  is  exactly  what  I  wanted  !" 
cried  Schmucke,  stopping  the  poor  super- 
numerary. "  Dobinard,  you  have  a  lodg- 
ing, have  you  not  ?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"  A  home  of  your  own  ?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Can  you  give  me  board  and  lodging? 
Oh  !  I  shall  be  a  goot  paj'master ;  I  have 
an  income  of  nine  hundred  francs  —  and 
then  I  have  not  long  to  liff.  I  shall  giff 
you  ferry  little  trouble.  I  can  eat  al- 
most anj'thing !  My  bibe  is  my  only 
bassion.  And  zince  you  are  de  only  ber- 
zon  who  has  zhared  my  grief  for  de  deat 
of  Bons,  I  lofe  3'ou  1 " 

"I  should  be  only  too  glad  to  do  as 
you  wish,  monsieur ;  but  I  must  tell  j'ou 
that  Monsieur  Gaudissard  has  given  me  a 
fine  wigging — " 

"A  wigging?  " 

"  I  mean  that  he  has  soused  my  head — " 

"Zouzed  your  head  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  scolded  me  for  taking  an  inter- 
est in  you  ;  therefore,  if  3'ou  come  to  live 
with  me,  we  must  keep  it  very  dark  !  But 
I  doubt  whether  you  would  stay  with  me; 
for  little  do  you  know  what  the  home  of 
a  poor  devil  such  as  I  am  is  like." 

"  I  brefer  de  humble  home  of  a  man  of 
feeling  who  has  mourned  for  Bons  to  de 


COUSIN    PONS. 


207 


Tuileries  in  de  zoziety  of  men  wid  de  faces 
of  tig-ers  !  I  have  just  left  Bons's  rooms 
full  of  tig-ers  who  are  going'  to  defour 
eferyting ! " 

*•  Come  along-  with  me,  monsieur,"  said 
the  supernumerary,  "  and  see  for  yourself. 
But —  Well,  after  all,  there  is  a  loft — 
Let  us  consult  Madame  Topinard." 

Schmucke  followed  Topinard  as  a  sheep 
follows  its  shepherd.  Topinard  conducted 
him  into  one  of  those  frightful  localities 
that  migTit  fitly  be  termed  the  cancers  of 
Paris.  This  spot  is  called  Bordin  Town. 
"Tis  a  narrow  passage  lined  by  houses 
such  as  builders  run  up  as  a  matter  of 
speculation.  It  has  an  outlet  into  the  Rue 
de  Bondy,  in  that  part  of  the  street  which 
is  overshadowed  by  the  immense  pile  of 
the  Porte-Saint-Martin  Theater — one  of 
the  warts  of  Paris.  This  passage,  the  path 
of  which  is  hollowed  out  and  sunk  below 
the  le\'el  pavement  of  the  street,  slopes 
down  toward  the  Rue  des  Mathurins-du- 
Temple.  The  town  is  bounded  by  an  inner 
street  which  runs  at  right  angles  to  the 
main  street,  so  that  the  two  streets  to- 
gether form  a  T. 

These  two  narrow  rows  of  buildings 
contain  about  thirty  houses  six  or  seven 
stories  high.  In  the  inner  courts  of  these 
houses,  and  in  each  of  the  tenements  into 
which  they  are  divided  there  is  a  shop,  a 
work-room,  or  a  manufactory  of  some 
kind  or  other.  In  fact,  Bordin  Town  is 
the  Faubourg  Saint  Antoine  in  miniature. 
Here  there  is  a  furniture-maker,  there  a 
brass-cutter;  here  theatrical  costumes  are 
fashioned,  there  a  glass-blower  or  a  china- 
painter  has  fixed  his  quarters  ;  in  short, 
Bordin  Town  turns  out  from  its  dim  re- 
cesses the  article  Paris  in  all  its  fanciful 
varieties.  This  passage,  like  Commerce 
itself,  is  dingy  but  productive.  It  swarms 
with  passengers,  carts  and  draj's.  Its 
aspect  is  repellent,  and  in  strict  keeping 
with  its  aspect  is  the  teeming-  population 
of  the  place — a  manufacturing  population, 
Avhose  dexterity  in  handicraft  is  counter- 
balanced by  the  stupidity  that  handicraft 
engenders.  It  was  on  account  of  the 
lowness  of  the  rents  that  Topinai-d  had 
pitched  his  tent  in  this  quarter,  which, 
fiom  an  industrial  point  of  view,  might 


be  called  a  flourishing  quarter.  His  abode 
was  situated  in  the  second  house  on  the 
left-hand  side  of  the  entry.  The  rooms 
he  occupied  were  upon  the  sixth-floor,  and 
looked  out  upon  that  belt  of  gardens, 
which  still  exist  as  appendages  to  the 
three  or  four  large  mansions  that  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Rue  de  Bondy. 

Topinard 's  apartments  consisted  of  a 
kitchen  and  two  other  rooms.  The  first 
of  these  was  the  children's  room,  and 
contained  two  little  bedsteads  of  white 
wood  and  a  cradle.  The  second  room 
was  occupied  by  Topinard  and  his  spouse. 
The  kitchen  did  duty  both  as  a  breakfast- 
room  and  a  dining-room.  Above  these 
apartments  there  was  a  kind  of  attic,  six 
feet  high,  roofed  -with  zinc,  and  having  a 
sky-light  for  a  window.  Access  to  this 
attic  was  obtained  by  means  of  a  stair- 
case of  white  wood — a  staircase  which  in 
builders'  slang  would  be  called  "  amiller's 
ladder."  This  room,  which  was  intended 
for  a  servant's  room,  entitled  Topinard 's 
lodgings  to  be  styled  a  complete  suite, 
and  raised  the  rental  to  the  sum-total  of 
four  hundred  francs.  At  the  entrance  to 
the  apartments  there  was  a  kind  of  arched 
vestibule,  lighted  by  a  small  round  win- 
dow in  the  wall  of  the  kitchen  and  formed 
by  the  junction  of  the  outer  door  of  the 
kitchen  and  the  door  of  the  first  room — 
three  doors  in  all.  This  vestibule  served 
to  conceal  the  kitchen.  A  familj-  of  five 
persons  (three  of  whom  were  children) 
found  shelter  in  these  apartments,  whicli 
were  hung  with  hideous  paper  at  six  sous 
the  piece,  floored  with  bricks,  garnished 
with  fire-places  of  that  particular  descrip- 
tion called  fire-places  a  la  capucine,  and 
painted  with  common  paint,  to  imitate 
wood. 

The  deep  scratches  inflicted  on  such 
portions  of  the  walls  as  were  within  the 
reach  of  the  children's  arms  may  be  readi- 
ly imagined :  but  the  rich  Avould  find  a 
difliculty  in  picturing  to  themselves  the 
simplicity  of  the  kitchen  range,  wliich 
consisted  of  a  nieat-hastener.  a  boiler,  a 
gridiron,  a  stew-pan,  two  or  three  coffee- 
pots and  a  fr3nng-pan.  The  crockery,  of 
white  and  brown  earthenware,  was  worth 
at  least  twelve  francs.      The  table  did 


208 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


duty  both  as  a  kitchen  table  and  a  dining- 
room  tabic  into  the  bargain.  The  furni- 
ture consisted  of  a  couple  of  chairs  and  a 
couple  of  stools.  The  stock  of  wood  and, 
coal  was  stowed  away  beneath  the  cook- 
ing-stove, while  in  another  corner  of  the 
room  stood  the  tub,  wherein,  at  night- 
time, the  family  linen  underwent  frequent 
lavation.  Thi;  room  in  which  the  childix'n 
found  a  local  habitation  was  traversed  by 
clothes-lines  and  adorned  with  playbills 
and  witli  engravings  extracted  from 
newspapers  or  from  the  prospectuses  of 
illustrated  works.  It  was  obvious  that 
the  elder  little  Topinard  (whose  school- 
books  encumbered  one  corner  of  the 
room)  acted  as  superintendent  of  the 
household  when  six  o'clock  came  and  fa- 
ther and  mother  were  called  awaj'  to  the 
theater.  In  full  many  a  humble  family, 
a  child  of  six  or  seven  years  is  called  upon 
to  play  the  part  of  mother  in  relation  to 
its  sister  and  brothers. 

This  slight  sketch  will  suffice  to  show 
that  the  Topinards  were  (as  the  now 
proverbial  saying  runs)  poor  but  honest. 
Topinard  was  about  forty  jj^ears  old,  and 
his  companion  (who  had  formerly  been  a 
chorus  leader  at  the  theater,  and  mistress 
of  the  insolvent  manager,  Gaudissard's 
immediate  predecessor)  was  about  thirty. 
Lolotte  had  been  a  handsome  woman ; 
but  the  misfortunes  which  overtook  the 
late  manager  had  reacted  upon  her  to 
such  an  extent  that  she  found  herself  re- 
duced to  the  necessity  of  contracting  a 
(stage)  marriage  with  Topinard.  She 
entertained  no  doubt  that,  so  soon  as 
the  joint  savings  of  herself  and  her  com- 
panion should  reach  the  sum-total  of  a 
hundred  and  fift^''  francs,  Topinard  would 
fulfill  his  vows  hy  making  her  his  lawful 
wife — were  it  only  for  the  sake  of  legiti- 
matizing his  children,  whom  he  idolized. 
When  Madame  Topinard  had  any  leisure 
time  in  tlie  morning  she  plied  her  needle 
for  the  wardrobe  of  the  theater.  By  dint 
of  superhuman  labor  these  two  coura- 
geous supernumeraries  contrived  between 
them  to  realize  an  annual  income  of  nine 
hundred  francs. 

When  Topinard  and  Schmucke  had 
reached    the    third-floor,     Topinard,    as 


each  fi'esh  flight  of  stairs  presented  it- 
self, cried  out  to  his  companion  by  way 
of  encouragement :  "  One  story  more  !  " 
But  so  profound  was  Schmucke's  sorrow 
that  he  did  not  even  know  whether  he 
were  going  upstairs  or  down. 

At  the  moment  when  Topinard,  Avho, 
like  all  persons  of  his  degree,  was  dressed 
in  white  holland,  opened  the  door  of  the 
room,  the  voice  of  Madame  Topinard  was 
heard  exclaiming  :  "  Come  now  !  childi'en, 
be  quiet,  here  comes  papa  ! '"'  And  since 
the  children,  no  doubt,  did  exactly  what 
they  pleased  with  papa,  the  eldest  con- 
tinued to  command  a  charge — a  souve- 
nir of  the  Cirque  Olympique — with  the 
broomstick  as  a  war-horse,  while  the  sec- 
ond went  on  blowing  a  tin  whistle,  and 
the  third  brought  up  the  rear-guard  of 
the  army  as  well  as  his  little  legs  would 
let  him.  The  mother  meanwhile  was  busy 
stitching  a  theatrical  costume. 

"  Silence  !  "  shouted  Topinard,  in  a  for- 
midable voice.  "Silence,  or  I  shall  strike  !" 
("I  am  always  obliged  to  saj'  that  to 
thorn,"  he  whispered  to  Schmucke.) 

"Look  here,  my  darling,"  said  the 
supernumerary  to  the  box-opener,  "  here 
is  Monsieur  Schmucke,  the  fi'iend  of  tliat 
poor  Monsieur  Pons.  He  does  not  know 
where  to  go  to,  and  would  like  to  live 
with  us.  I  warned  him  that  we  were 
anything  but  swells,  that  we  lived  on  a 
sixth  story,  and  had  nothing  better  than 
a  loft  to  offer  him ;  but  it  was  all  to  no 
purpose;  he  had  set  his  heart  upon  it — " 

Schmucke  meanwhile  had  seated  himself 
in  the  chair  which  the  woman  had  brought 
forward  for  him ;  and  the  children,  cowed 
by  the  advent  of  a  stranger,  had  formed 
a  little  group  and  betaken  themselves  to 
the  silent,  exhaustive,  but  rapid  scrutiny 
characteristic  of  childhood,  which,  like 
the  dog,  is  guided  \>y  instinct  rather  than 
by  reason.  Schmucke,  on  his  part,  fell  to 
studying  this  graceful  little  group ;  one 
member  of  which — the  trumpeter — was 
a  little  girl  with  magnificent   light  hair. 

"  Zhe  looks  like  a  little  German  girl  !  " 
said  Schmucke, beckoning  the  child  to  come 
to  him. 

"The  gentleman  will  be  very  uncom- 
fortable in  the  loft,"  said  the  box-opener. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


209 


"  If  I  were  not  obliged  to  keep  the  chil- 
dren under  vay  eye,  I  would  gladly  oflFer 
him  our  room." 

She  then  ojiened  the  door  of  her  own 
room  and  ushered  Schmuckeinto  it.  This 
room  contained  all  the  luxury  that  the 
e.stablishment  could  boast.  There  was  a 
mahogany  bedstead  furnished  with  cur- 
tains of  blue  calico  fringed  with  white. 
The  window-curtains  also  were  made  of 
blue  calico  of  the  same  kind  and  pattern. 
The  chest  of  drawers,  writing-table  and 
chairs,  though  all  of  them  were  of  plain 
mahogany,  were  in  apple-pie  order.  On 
the  mantel-shelf  there  were  a  time-piece 
and  two  candelabra — articles  which  had 
evidently  been  presented  to  Lolotte  in 
former  days  by  the  bankrupt  manager, 
whose  portrait,  an  execrable  daub  by 
Pierre  Grassou,  hung  upon  the  wall 
above  the  chest  of  drawers.  It  was 
natural  enough  that  the  children,  for- 
bidden as  they  were  to  enter  this  sanc- 
tum, should  seize  this  chance  of  catching 
a  stolen  glimpse  of  it. 

"  Now,  monsieur  would  be  very  com- 
fortable here,''  said  the  box-opener. 

"No,  no!"  replied  Schmucke.  "Ah, 
no  ;  my  days  are  numbered  ;  all  I  need  is 
some  nook  wherein  to  die." 

The  door  of  the  sanctum  having  been 
closed,  the  party  mounted  to  the  attic. 
Directly  Schmucke  reached  it,  he  ex- 
claimed :  "  Ah  !  dat  is  egzactly  what  I 
want.  Before  I  went  to  live  wid  Bons 
I  was  never  better  lodged  dan  dat." 

"  Very  well,  then  ;  all  we  have  to  do  is 
to  buj-^  a  truckle-bed,  a  couple  of  mat- 
tresses, a  bolster,  a  piUow,  two  chairs, 
and  a  table.  That  won't  kill  any  one — it 
may  come  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  francs  ; 
basin,  jug,  and  a  small  carpet  for  the  bed- 
side included." 

So  the  whole  matter  was  arranged ; 
only — the  hundred  and  fifty  francs  were 
not  forthcoming. 

But  as  Schmucke  was  within  a  stone's- 
throw  of  the  theater,  it  very  naturally 
occurred  to  him,  seeing  how  poor  his  new 
friends  were,  to  go  thither  and  claim  the 
salary  due  to  liim  from  the  manager.  So 
to  the  theater  he  foi'thwith  repaired  and 
there  found  Gaudissard. 


The  manager  received  Schmucke  with 
the  somewhat  overstrained  politeness 
which  he  habitually  displayed  toward  the 
artists  of  his  theatei-,  and  was  astonished 
at  Schmucke's  demanding  a  month's  sal- 
ar3'.  Nevertheless,  his  claim  appearing, 
on  examination,  to  be  well-founded,  the 
manager  exclaimed : 

"  Well !  deuce  take  it,  my  worthy 
friend  !  The  Germans,  it  seems,  always 
know  how  to  reckon,  even  when  they  are 
in  tears.  I  thought  you  would  have  been 
sensible  of  my  present  of  a  thousand 
francs  —  a  full  year's  salary  —  which  I 
sent  you,  and  that  it  would  make  us 
quits ! " 

"  We  did  not  receive  a  zingle  farding," 
said  the  worthy  German  ;  "  and  if  I  have 
applied  to  you  for  money  it  is  because  I 
am  in  de  street  and  have  not  one  farding. 
To  whom  did  you  intrust  de  brezent  ?  " 

"  To  your  portress  !  " 

"To  Madame  Zibod  !  "  exclaimed  the 
musician.  "  Why,  she  killed  Bons  — 
robbed  him,  zold  him.  She  tried  to  burn 
his  will.     She  is  a  fillain,  a  monzder  !  " 

"  But,  my  good  fellow,  how  comes  it 
that  you  are  in  the  street  and  without  a 
shelter  when  you  are  the  universal  lega- 
tee.    That  is  not  logical,  as  we  say." 

"  Dey  turned  me  out-of-doors.  I  am  a 
foreigner.     I  know  noting  of  your  law — " 

"Poor  old  man  !"  thought  Gaudissard, 
who  foresaw  what  was  likelj^  to  be  the 
issue  of  so  unequal  a  combat.  "  Now 
listen  to  me,"  said  he,  aloud.  "  Shall  I 
tell  you  what  you  ought  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  have  an  agent." 

"  Well,  then ;  enter  into  a  compromise 
with  the  legal  heirs  at  once.  They  will 
give  you  a  certain  sum  down,  and  an  an- 
nuity, and  you  will  live  in  peace—" 

"  Dat  is  all  I  want !  "  replied  Schmucke. 

"Well,  then,  leave  me  to  make  the 
necessary  arrangements  on  your  behalf." 
said  Gaudissard,  to  whom  Fraisier,  on 
the  previous  evening,  had  imparted  his 
modus  opei-andi. 

Gaudissard 's  idea  was  that  he  would 
be  able  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the 
j'outhful  Viscountess  Popinot  and  her 
mother  bj^  bringing  this  dirty  piece  of 
business  to  a  conclusion.     I   shall  be  a 


aio 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


councilor  of  state,  at  the  very  least," 
said  he  to  himself. 

"You  have  my  authority  to  act  for 
me—" 

"Well,  then,  just  let's  see  how  mat- 
ters stand.  In  the  firet  place,  here  are  a 
hundred  pounds,"  said  the  Napoleon  of 
tlie  boulevard  theaters,  taking-  from  his 
pocket  fifteen  louis  and  presenting-  them 
to  the  old  musician.  "  Those  belong  to 
you  ;  'tis  six  months'  salary  in  advance. 
You  can  return  them  to  me  iii  case  of 
your  throwing  up  the  theater.  Now  let 
us  reckon ;  what  are  your  annual  ex- 
penses ?  What  do  3'ou  require  to  live 
upon  comfortably  ?  Come  now,  arrange 
for  a  Sardanapalian  existence  !  " 

"I  only  want  a  summer  suit  and  a  win- 
ter suit — " 

"Three  hundred  francs,"  said  Gau- 
dissard. 

"  Shoes,  four  pairs — " 

"Sixty  francs." 

"Stocking-s." 

"Twelve  pairs  —  that's  thirty  -  six 
francs." 

"SLx  shirts." 

"  Six  calico  shirts,  twent-four  francs  ; 
the  same  number  of  linen  ones,  forty- 
eight  ;  say  seventy  -  two  francs.  We 
have  g-ot  to  four  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  frnncs ;  let's  say  five  hundred 
francs,  including  neckcloths  and  hand- 
kerchiefs ;  then  one  hundred  francs  for 
washing  —  six  hundred  francs.  Now, 
what  do  you  require  to  live  upon  ? 
Three  francs  a  day?" 

"No,  dat  is  too  much  !  " 

"  Well,  but  you  will  have  to  Duy  hats. 
That  makes  fifteen  hundred  francs ;  and 
five  hundred  francs  for  rent,  two  thou- 
sand. Would  you  like  me  to  procure  you 
an  annuity  of  two  thousand  francs,  well 
secured  ?  " 

"Den,  dere  is  my  tobacco." 

"Two  thousand  four  hundred  francs! 
Ah,  Daddy  Schmucke.  You  call  it  to- 
bacco, do  you?  Well,  you  shall  have 
your  tobacco.  Then  the  annuity  is  to  be 
two  thousand  four  hundred  francs." 

"  Dat  is  not  all.  I  want  a  zertain  zum 
in  ready  money  !  " 

("  Ah  !    The  premium  of  course  !    Oh, 


these  Germans !  They  call  themselves 
simple!  The  old  Robert  Macaire,"  said 
Gaudissard  to  himself.)  "Well,  what 
do  you  want?"  repeated  he.  "But 
mind  you,  this  must  be  all." 

"I  want  de  money  to  bay  a  zagred 
debt,"  said  Schmucke. 

("A  debt,  eh?"  said  Gaudissard  to 
himself.  "  What  a  rascal  it  is  !  Why, 
he's  worse  than  a  young  hopeful !  He's 
g-oing  to  invent  some  bills  of  exchange 
now !  We  shall  have  to  put  a  stop  to 
this.  This  Fraisier  don't  take  a  compre- 
hensive view  of  things  !)  What  debt  are 
you  referring  to,  my  g-ood  fellow  ?  Say 
on  !  " 

' '  Dere  is  but  one  man  who  zhared  my 
grief  for  Bons's  death  ;  he  has  a  nice  little 
g-irl  with  magnificent  hair;  zhe  reminded 
me,  at  onze,  of  de  genius  of  my  dear  Ger- 
manj^  which  I  oug-hb  never  to  have  left. 
Baris  is  not  g:oot  for  de  Germans.  Dey 
only  get  laug-hed  at  here  !"  said  Schmucke, 
nodding-  his  head  with  the  air  of  one  who 
is  thoroug-hly  persuaded  that  he  has  a 
clear  insight  into  the  ways  of  this  wicked 
world. 

"He  is  mad,"  said  Gaudissard  to  him- 
self. 

And  a  tear  stole  to  the  eye  of  the  man- 
ager, who  felt  a  twinge  of  compassion  for 
the  inoffensive,  artless  old  man. 

"  Ah  !  you  understand  me,  Monzir  le 
Tirecdir !  Well,  dis  man  wit  de  little  girl 
is  Dobinard  ;  Dobinard  who  attends  to  de 
orgeztra,  and  lights  de  lamps.  Bons  liked 
him  and  used  to  help  him.  He  is  de  only 
berzon  who  followed  de  funeral  of  my  only 
friend  to  de  church  and  to  de  zemetery.  I 
want  tree  touzand  francs  for  him  and  tree 
touzand  francs  for  de  little  girl — " 

"Poor  man  !  "  said  Gaudissard,  aside. 

Relentless  parvenu  as  he  was,  Gaudis- 
sard was  touched  by  Schmucke 's  magna- 
nimity, and  by  his  gratitude  for  an  act 
which,  though  it  would  have  seemed  the 
veriest  trifle  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  out- 
weighed (like  Bossuet's  glass  of  water) 
the  victories  of  conquerors  in  the  estima- 
tion of  this  meek  and  humble  Christian. 
Beneath  all  Gaudissard 's  vanity,  beneath 
his  burning  thirst  for  success,  beneath  his 
fierce  desire  to  place  himself  on  a  level 


COUSIX    PONS. 


ni 


with  his  friend  Count  Poplnot,  there  lay 
a  good  heart  and  a  kindly  disposition. 
He  therefore  rescinded  his  rash  judgment 
in  regard  to  Schmucke  and  passed  over  to 
his  side. 

"You  shall  have  all  you  ask  for.  But, 
my  dear  Schmucke,  I  will  do  even  more 
than  that ;  Topinard  is  a  man  of  integrity, 
is  he  not  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  saw  him  hut  now  in  his 
humble  home,  where  he  lives  contentedly 
among  his  children." 

"  I  will  give  him  the  post  of  treasurer — 
for  Daddy  Baudrand  is  on  the  point  of 
lea%ang  us." 

"Oh,  may  Got  bless  JO^x  !  "  exclaimed 
Schmucke. 

"Well,  then,  mj'  good  and  worthy-  fel- 
low, join  me  at  four  o'clock  this  after- 
noon at  the  house  of  Berthier,  the  notary ; 
all  shall  be  in  readiness,  and  you  will  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  want  for  the  rest  of 
your  days.  You  shall  have  your  six  thou- 
sand francs,  and  you  shall  hold  the  same 
position  under  Garangeot  as  you  held 
under  Pons,  and  at  the  same  salary." 

"No,"  said  Schmucke,  "I  shall  not 
liff  ;  I  have  no  heart  for  anyting ;  I  feel 
dat  my  healt  is  undermined." 

"  Poor  sheep  !  "  moralized  Gaudissard, 
as  he  bowed  to  the  departing  Schmucke. 
"  WeU,  after  all,  one  Lives  on  mutton  cut- 
lets; and  as  the  sublime  Beranger  puts 
it :  '  Poor  sheep,  poor  sheep,  ye  are  doomed 
to  be  shorn  ! '  "  and  humming  this  politi- 
cal opinion  with  a  view  to  subduing  his 
emotion,  the  manager  told  the  office  page 
to  send  his  carriage  round. 

When  he  had  reached  the  foot  of  the 
staircase,  he  called  out  to  the  coachman : 
"Kue  de  Hanovre."  The  man  of  ambi- 
tion had  reappeared  in  his  totality.  The 
council  of  state  loomed  before  his  eyes. 


XXXI. 


THE  BITTER  END. 


While  Gaudissard  was  on  his  way  to 
the  Rue  de  Hano%Te,  Schmucke  was  en- 
gaged in  buying  some  flowers  and  cakes 


for  Topinard 's  children.  His  heart  wa« 
almost  light  as  he  took  these  offerings 
home ;  and,  as  he  uttered  the  words  :  ••  I 
make  you  a  present  of  de  gakes,"  a  smile 
played  upon  his  lips  which  for  three  long 
months  had  knowTi  no  smile — a  smile  that 
would  have  made  an  observer  shudder. 

"  I  make  you  a  present  of  de  gakes  on 
one  gondition." 

"You  are  too  good,  monsieur,"  said 
the  mother. 

"  De  little  gu'l  must  giff  me  a  kiss,  and 
put  de  flowers  in  her  hair  and  arrange 
her  hair  as  de  little  German  girls  do." 

"  Olga,  my  child,  do  exactly  what  this 
gentleman  asks  you,"  said  the  box-opener 
with  an  air  of  severity. 

"Don't  speak  grossly  to  my  little  Ger- 
man girl,"  pleaded  Schmucke;  for  the 
sight  of  the  little  creature  brought  his 
dear  Germany  before  his  eyes. 

"Three  commissionaires  are  on  their 
way  here  with  all  the  rattle-traps  upon 
their  shouldere,"  said  Topinard,  bursting 

into  the  room. 

"Ah  !  "  said  Schmucke.  "  Here  are  two 
hundred  francs  to  pa}'  for  them  all,  vay 
friend.  But — you  have  a  gentle  greature 
for  your  mate  ;  j-ou  will  marry  her,  won't 
you  ?  I  will  giff  you  tree  tousand  francs ; 
de  little  girl  shall  liave  a  marriage  bor- 
tion  of  tree  tousand  francs,  which  you  can 
invest  in  her  name.  And  you  are  not  to 
be  a  supemumerarj'  any  longer — you  are 
to  be  de  treasurer  of  de  teatcr." 

"  Jto  have  Daddy  Baudrand's  place  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Who  told  you  so?" 

"Monsir  Cautissard." 

"Oh!  it's  enough  to  make  one  mad 
with  joy !  Here,  Rosalie,  I  say,  won't 
the  folks  at  the  theater  be  vexed  !  But 
it  can't  be  true,"  he  added. 

"  Our  benefactor  mustn't  be  huddled 
away  in  an  attic." 

"Bah  !  for  the  few  days  dat  I  have  to 
liff  it  A\ill  be  quite  goot  enough,"  said 
Schmucke.  "  Goot^by.  I  am  going  to 
de  zemetery  to  see  what  dej-  have  done 
wit  Bons,  and  to  order  zome  flowers  for 
his  grafe." 

Madame  Camusot  meanwhile  was  a 
prey  to  the  liveliest   alarms.    Fraisier, 


21^ 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Godeschal,  and  Berthier  were  in  consulta- 
tion at  her  house.  Berthier  the  notary, 
and  Godeschal  the  solicitor,  considered 
that  the  will  drawn  up  by  two  notaries  in 
the  presence  of  two  witnesses  was  (in  con- 
sequence of  the  clear  and  concise  manner 
in  wliich  it  had  been  framed  by  Leopold 
Hannequin)  quite  beyond  the  reach  of 
attack.  According  to  the  worthy  Gode- 
schal, Schmucke,  even  if  his  present  ad- 
viser succeeded  in  throwing  dust  in  his 
eyes,  would,  sooner  or  later,  learn  how 
matters  really  stood ;  were  it  only  from 
the  lips  of  one  of  those  advocates  who,  in 
order  to  distinguish  themselves,  have  re- 
course to  acts  of  generosity  and  delicacy. 
The  two  ministerial  officers,  therefore,  ere 
they  quitted  the  house  of  Madame  Camu- 
sot,  advised  her  to  beware  of  Fraisier, 
about  whose  character  they  had,  very 
naturally,  instituted  certain  inquiries. 
While  this  caution  Avas  being  given,  Frai- 
sier, who  had  just  returned  from  witness- 
ing the  apposition  of  the  seals,  was  draw- 
ing up  a  summons  in  the  jjresident's  studj', 
into  which  he  had  been  ushered  by  Madame 
Camusot  at  the  instigation  of  the  two 
ministerial  officers  to  whom  the  whole 
alfair  seemed  (to  use  their  own  expres- 
sion) too  dirty  for  a  president  to  meddle 
v/ith,  and  who  were  consequently  arLdous 
to  express  their  opinion  to  Madame  Camu- 
sot without  being  overheard  by  Fraisier. 

"Well,  madame,  what  has  become  of 
the  two  gentlemen  ?  "  inquired  the  quon- 
dam solicitor  of  Mantes. 

"Why,  they  have  flown,  after  giving 
me  a  parting  recommendation  to  throw 
\ip  the  whole  concern  !  "  replied  Madame 
de  Marville. 

"Throw  it  up!''  exclaimed  Fraisier, 
in  accents  of  concentrated  rage.  "Just 
listen  to  this,  madame.',' 

And  so  saying,  he  read  aloud  the  fol- 
lowing document : 

"  On  the  petition  of  etc.,  etc.  (I  omit 
the  verbiage.)  Whereas,  a  will  has  been 
deposited  in  the  hands  of  Monsieur  le 
President  of  the  tribunal  of  first  instance, 
which  will  was  received  by  Maitre  Leo- 
pold Haniiequin  and  Maitre  Alexandre 
Crottat,  notaries  of  Paris,  accompanied 


bj'  two  witnesses  (to  wit)  :  Messieurs 
Brunner  and  Schwab,  foreigners  domi- 
ciled at  Paris,  by  which  said  will  Mon- 
sieur Pons  (deceased)  has  disposed  of  Ijis 
estate  to  the  prejudice  of  the  petitioner 
his  lawful  and  natural  heir,  and  in  favor 
of  one  Monsieur  Schmucke,  a  German  ; 

"And  whereas,  the  petitioner  under- 
takes to  prove  that  the  said  will  is  the 
outcome  of  the  most  odious  undue  influ- 
ence, and  the  result  of  maneuvers  which 
the  law  condemns;  and  whereas,  it  will 
be  shown  hy  the  evidence  of  certain  emi- 
nent personages  that  the  intention  of  the 
testator  was  to  bequeath  his  fortune  to 
Mademoiselle  Cecile,  daughter  of  the  said 
Monsieur  de  Marville  ;  and  the  will  which 
the  petitioner  claims  to  have  set  aside 
was  extorted  from  the  weakness  of  the 
testator  when  he  was  in  a  state  of  abso- 
lute imbecility ; 

"And  whereas,  Monsieur  Schmucke, 
with  a  view  to  procuring  this  universal 
bequest,  kept  the  testator  in  the  closest 
seclusion,  and  prevented  the  family  of  the 
testator  from  obtaining  access  to  his 
deathrbed ;  and  moreover,  when  once  he 
had  achieved  his  object,  proceeded  to  acts 
of  flagrant  ingratitiule  which  scandalized 
the  inhabitants  of  the  house  in  which  he 
dwelt  and  of  the  surrounding  neighbor- 
hood, who  were  accidentally  present  in 
order  to  pay  their  last  respects  to  the 
porter  of  the  house  in  which  the  testator 
died  ; 

"And,  whereas  facts  of  still  greater 
import,  facts  of  which  the  petitioner  is  at 
the  present  moment  engaged  in  obtaining 
proof,  will  be  formally  averred  before  the 
judges  of  the  tribunal ; 

"  I,  the  undersigned  bailiff,  etc.,  etc.,  do 
hereby,  in  the  said  name,  etc.,  etc.,  sum- 
mon the  said  Monsieur  Schmucke,  etc., 
etc.,  to  appear  before  the  judges  of  the 
first  chamber  of  the  tribunal,  to  be  pres- 
ent at  the  declaration  that  the  will  re- 
ceived by  Maitres  Hannequin  and  Crottat, 
being  the  outcome  of  the  most  conspicu- 
ous undue  influence,  will  be  regarded  as 
void  and  of  none  effect,  and  I  do  more- 
over, in  the  said  name  protest  against 
the  quality  and  capacity  of  universal 
legatee  which  the  said  Monsieur  Schmucke 


COUSIN    PONS. 


213 


might  assume,  inasmuch  as  I  have  heard 
the  petitioner  oppose,  as  in  fact  he  does, 
by  liis  petition  of  this  day's  date  presented 
to  Monsieur  le  President,  oppose  the  de- 
livery of  possession  to  the  said  Monsieur 
Schmuclce,  and  I  have  left  a  copy  of  these 
presents  (the  costs  of  wliicli  amount  to, 
etc.,  etc.)  with  him,  etc.,  etc." 

"Now,  Madame  la  Presidente,  I  know 
my  man;  and  when  he  has  read  this  billet- 
doux  he  will  come  to  terms ;  he'll  con- 
sult Tahareau,  and  Tabareau  will  tell  him 
to  accept  our  offer.  Are  you  prepared 
to  grant  the  annuit^-^  of  three  thousand 
francs?  " 

"Undoubtedly.  I  only  wish  I  were  on 
the  point  of  paying  the  first  quarter  of  it." 

"  That  will  be  the  case  before  three  days 
are  over  our  heads ;  for  this  summons  will 
overtake  him  when  he  is  under  the  stun- 
ning influence  of  recent  sorrow,  for  he 
regrets  Pons,  does  the  poor  man.  He 
took  the  loss  very  much  to  heart." 

"Can  the  summons,  when  once  issued, 
be  withdrawn?"  said  Madame  de  Mar- 
villc. 

"Assuredlj',  ma  dame ;  it  is  always 
open  to  one  to  desist." 

"Well,  then,  you  can  go  on,  monsieur," 
said  Madame  de  Marville.  "  Pursue  your 
couvse.  Yes,  the  purchase  which  you  have 
arranged  forme  is  well  worth  the  trouble. 
I  have,  moreover,  settled  the  business  of 
Vitel's  resignation,  but  you  will  paj'  Vitel 
his  sixty  thousand  francs  out  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  Pons's  estate.  So  you  see,  suc- 
cess is  essential." 

"You  have  his  resignation?" 

"  Yes,  monsieur  ;  Monsieur  Vitel  relies 
upon  Monsieur  de  Marville." 

"Very  good,  madame;  I  have  already 
released  you  from  the  payment  of  the 
sixty  thousand  francs  which,  I  calculated, 
must  be  given  to  this  vile  i^ortress,  this 
Madame  Cibot.  But  I  still  wish  to  secure 
the  tobacco  shop  for  Madame  Sauvage, 
and  the  nomination  of  my  friend  Poulain 
to  the  vacant  post  of  chief  pliysician  to 
the  Quinze-Vingts." 

"Agreed!     Everything  is   arranged." 

"Well, then,  'tis  all  settled,"  said  Frai- 
sier.     "  Every  one  is  on  your  side  in  this 


matter ;  even  Gaudissard,  the  theatrical 
manager  to  whom  I  paid  a  visit  yester- 
day, and  who  promised  me  that  he  would 
crush  a  cei-tain  supernumerary  who  might 
interfere  with  our  projects." 

"Oh,  I  know  all  about  it.  Monsieur 
Gaudissard  is  read^'  to  do  anything  for 
the  Popinots  !  " 

Fraisier  now  took  leave  of  Madame  de 
Marville.  Unfortunately  he  did  not  meet 
Gaudissard,  and  the  fatal  summons  was 
launched  without  dela3\ 

The  avaricious  will  comprehend,  as  read- 
ily as  the  upright  will  condemn,  the  elation 
of  Madame  de  Marville  when,  twenty  min- 
utes after  Fraisier's  departure,  Gaudis- 
sard arrived  and  informed  her  of  his 
conversation  with  poor  Schmucke.  Ma- 
dame de  Marville  indorsed  with  her  ap- 
probation all  that  had  been  done  ;  and 
felt  unboundedly  thankful  to  the  man- 
ager for  scattering  all  lier  compunctious 
visitings  of  nature  by  sundry  remarks 
which  seemed  to  her  to  be  full  of  good 
sense. 

"  As  I  was  on  my  way  hither,  Madame 
la  Presidente,"  said  Gaudissard,  "it  oc- 
curred to  me  that,  after  all,  this  poor 
devil  wouldn't  know  what  on  earth  to  do 
with  his  fortune !  He  is  a  being  of  pa- 
triarchal simplicity  !  He  is  artless,  he  is 
a  German ;  he  reall\'  ought  to  be  stuffed 
and  put  under  a  glass  case  like  a  little 
waxen  image  of  our  Saviour.  I  mean  to 
saj^  that,  in  my  opmion,  even  as  matters 
now  stand,  he  scarcely  knows  what  to  do 
with  his  two  thousand  five  hundred  francs 
a  year,  and  that  you  are  supplying  him 
with  temptations  to  dissipation — " 

"'  It  shows,"  said  Madame  de  Marville, 
"a  very  noble  heart  to  eniich  the  young 
man  who  is  sorry  for  the  death  of  our 
cousin.  For  my  part,  I  deeply  regret  the 
little  misunderstanding  which  set  us  at 
loggerheads — Monsieur  Pons  and  me.  If 
he  had  onlj-  come  back,  all  would  have 
been  forgiven.  If  you  only  knew — my  hus- 
band positively  misses  him.  Monsieur  de 
Marville  was  quite  upset  at  not  having 
been  informed  of  his  decease,  for  he  has  a 
religious  regard  for  family  duties ;  he 
would  have  attended  the  service  and  fol- 
lowed the  funeral  even  to  the  grave,  and  I 


21* 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


myself  would  have  been  present  at  the 
funeral  mass — " 

"Well,  then,  fair  laclj',"  said  Gaudis- 
sard  ;  "  will  you  be  good  enough  to  have 
the  deed  drawn  up.  I  will  bring  the  Ger- 
man to  you  at  four  o'clock.  Commend 
me,  madamc,  to  the  good  graces  of  your 
charming  daughter  the  Viscountess  Popi- 
not ;  and  beg  her  to  tell  my  illustrious 
friend  (her  worthy  and  excellent  father- 
in-law)  how  thoroughly  devoted  I  am  to 
him  and  his  ;  and  entreat  him  to  continue 
his  valuable  favors  to  me.  I  owe  my  very 
existence  to  his  uncle  the  judge,  and  my 
fortune  to  him ;  would  that  I  might  be 
indebted  to  you,  madame,  and  to  j'our 
daughter  for  that  consideration  which 
attaches  to  persons  of  influence  and  stand- 
ing. I  want  to  abandon  the  stage  and 
become  a  man  of  solid  position." 

"You  are  so  already,  monsiem*,"  said 
Madame  de  Marville. 

"Charming!"  exclaimed  Gaudissard, 
as  he  kissed  the  lady's  skinny  hand,  and 
withdrew. 

At  four  o'clock  there  were  gathered  to- 
gether in  the  private  office  of  Monsieur 
Berthicr,  the  notary ;  firstly,  Fraisier 
(by  whom  the  deed  of  compromise  had 
been  drawn  up)  ;  secondly,  Tabareau, 
Schmucke's  proxj^ ;  and  thirdly  (piloted 
to  the  spot  by  Gaudissard)  Sclimucke 
himself.  The  six  thousand  francs  which 
Schmucke  had  asked  for,  and  the  six  hun- 
dred francs  of  the  first  quarterly  install- 
ment of  the  annuity,  Fraisier  had  carefully 
arrayed  in  bank-notes  upon  the  notarj^'s 
desk,  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  poor 
German,  who,  dazzled  by  the  sight  of  so 
much  money,  paid  not  the  slightest  atten- 
tion to  the  reading  of  the  document.  In- 
deed, it  must  be  confessed  that  the  poor 
fellow,  whom  Gaudissard  had  pounced 
upon  just  as  he  was  returning  from  the 
cemetery  (where  he  had  talked  to  Pons 
and  promised  to  rejoin  him)  was  not  in 
full  possession  of  all  his  faculties,  which 
had  already  been  severely  shaken  by  so. 
many  shocks.  He  took  no  heed,  tl^ere- 
fore,  of  the  preamble  of  the  deed,  wherein 
he  was  represented  as  being  assisted  by 
Maitre  Tabareau,  his  agent  and  adviser, 
and  the  grounds  of  the  suit  instituted  by 


the  president  in  the  interests  of  his  daugh- 
ter were  recapitulated.  'Twas  a  sorry 
part  that  the  poor  German  was  called 
upon  to  play ;  for  by  signing  the  deed  he 
admitted  the  justice  of  Fraisier's  fearful 
imputations.  But  Schmucke  was  so  re- 
joiced at  the  sight  of  the  money  for 
Topinard's  family,  and  so  happy  in  the 
thought  of  enriching,  according  to  his 
contracted  ideas,  the  only  man  who  cared 
for  Pons,  that  not  one  word  of  the  com- 
promise that  was  to  terminate  the  suit 
reached  his  ears. 

In  the  very  midst  of  the  reading  of  the 
deed,  a  clerk  came  into  the  office  and  said 
to  his  employer:  "Monsieur,  there  is  a 
man  outside  who  wants  to  speak  to  Mon- 
sieur Schmucke." 

At  a  gesture  from  Fraisier,  the  notary 
significantly  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Never  interrupt  us  when  engaged  in 
signing  deeds.  Inquire  the  name  of  this 
— is  it  a  man  or  a  gentleman  ?  Is  it  a 
creditor?  " 

Tlie  clerk  disappeared  ;  then  returned 
and  said  :  "He  insists  upon  speaking  to 
Monsieur  Schmucke." 

"His  name?  " 

"His  name  is  Topinard." 

"I'll  go.  Don't  hesitate  to  sign,"  said 
Gaudissard  to  Schmucke.  "  Conclude  the 
matter.  I'll  go  and  see  what  he  wants 
with  us." 

Gaudissard  had  understood  Fraisier's 
gesture.     Both  of  them  suspected  danger. 

"  What  is  it  that  brings  you  here  ?  " 
said  the  manager  to  the  supernumerary. 
"  It  Avould  seem  as  if  you  didn't  care 
about  being  treasurer?  The  principal 
qualification  for  a  treasurer  is — discre- 
tion." 

"  Monsieur ! " 

"  Go  and  attend  to  ,your  own  business. 
You  will  never  be  anj-thing  if  you  meddle 
with  that  of  others." 

"  Monsieur,  I  will  not  eat  bread  every 
mouthful  of  which  would  stick  in  my 
throat.  Monsieur  Schmucke  !  "  shouted 
he.  At  the  sound  of  Topinard's  voice, 
Schmucke,  who  had  signed  the  deed, 
came  out  with  his  monej^  in  his  hand. 
"  Dis  is  for  de  little  German  girl  and 
you,"  said  he. 


COUSIN    PONS. 


215 


"Oh!  my  dear  Monsieur  Schmucke, 
you  have  been  enriching'  a  pack  of  mon- 
sters— a  set  of  people  who  would  rob  3'ou 
of  your  g-ood  name.  See,  I  took  that  to 
a  worthy  man — a  solicitor  who  knows 
this  Fraisier — and  he  says  that  it  is  your 
dutj'  to  punish  so  much  wickedness  by 
defending'  the  action,  and  that  they  will 
give  way.     Read." 

And  so  saving,  this  impi'udent  friend 
gave  Schmucke  the  summons  which  had 
been  sent  to  him  at  Bordin  Town. 
Schmucke  took  the  paper,  read  it,  and 
seeing  how  he  was  therein  treated,  and 
being  an  entire  stranger  to  the  amenities 
of  legal  procedure,  received  a  mortal 
blow.  This  pebble  stopped  the  action 
of  his  heart,  and  he  fell  exhausted  into 
tlie  arms  of  Topinard. 

At  the  time  when  this  happened  the 
pair  were  standing  under  the  notary's 
entrance  gateway  ;  so  Topinard  hailed  a 
passing  hackney-carriage  and  placed  the 
poor  German  in  it.  Schmucke  was  suffer- 
ing the  pangs  attendant  on  a  serious  con- 
gestion of  the  brain  ;  everything  swam 
before  his  sight,  but  he  had  still  strength 
to  hold  out  the  money  to  Topinard. 

Schmucke  did  not  immediately  succumb 
to  this  first  attack ;  but  he  never  recov- 
ered his  reason  ;  all  his  movements  were 
purely  automatic  ;  he  ceased  to  eat,  and, 
at  the  end  of  ten  days,  died  without  a 
mui'mur,  for  he  could  not  speak.  He  was 
nursed  by  Madame  Topinard  and  buried 
obscurely  at  Topinard's  expense.  Topi- 
nard was  the  only  person  who  followed 
the  body  of  this  child  of  Germany  to  its 
last  I'estmg-place. 

Fraisier,  who  has  been  made  a  juge  de 
paix,  and  is  on  the  most  intimate  terms 
with  the  family  of  Monsieur  de  Mar\alle, 
stands  high  in  the  esteem  of  Madame  la 
Presidente.  She  does  not  wash  him  to 
marry  Tabareau's  daughter,  and  prom- 
ises to  find  a  far  better  match  for  the 
able  man  to  whom  she  is  beholden,  not 
for  the  acquisition  of  the  pasture-land  at 
MarviUe  and  the  cottage  only,  but  also 
for  the  Section  of  IMonsieur  de  Marville, 
who  was  returned  to  the  chamber  of  dep- 
uties at  the  general  election  in  1346. 

Every  one  Avill  no  doubt  be  anxious  to 


learn  what  became  of  the  heroine  of  this 
hLstoiy— a  hi.story  the  details  of  which 
are,  alas,  too  true  ;  and  which  proves  that 
the  chief  of  all  social  forces  is  character. 
That  heroine  is,  as  you,  oh,  ye  amateurs, 
connoisseurs,  and  dealers,  will  at  once 
perceive,  the  Pons  collection.  In  order 
to  learn  its  fate,  all  we  need  do  is  to  listen 
to  a  conversation  which  was  held  a  few 
days  since  at  the  house  of  Count  Popinot, 
when  he  was  exhibiting  his  magnificent 
collection  to  some  foreigTiers. 

"Monsieup  le  Comte,"  said  a  distin- 
guished foreigner,  "you  are  the  owner  of 
treasures." 

"Oh,  my  lord,"  said  Count  Popinot, 
modestly,  "so  far  as  regards  pictures,  no 
one  (I  will  not  say  in  Paris,  but)  in 
Europe,  can  lay  to  his  soul  the  flattering 
unction  that  he  can  compete  with  a  cer- 
tain obscure  individual,  a  Jew  named  Elic 
Magus,  an  aged  maniac,  the  prince  of 
Ijicture-maniacs.  He  has  collected  more 
than  a  hundred  pictures  such  as  to  dis- 
courage amateurs  from  attempting  to 
form  collections.  France  ought  really  to 
sacrifice  seven  or  eight  millions  of  francs, 
and  purchase  this  gallery  when  the  rich 
old  fellow  dies.  But  as  regards  curiosi- 
ties, my  collection  will  bear  talking 
about — " 

"But  how  can  a  man  so  bus}'  as  you 
are,  and  whose  original  fortune  was  so 
honorably  acquired  in  trade — " 

"In  the  drug  trade,"  interposed  Popi- 
not. "  How  can  such  a  man.  you  would 
say,  continue  to  dabble  in — drugs  ?  " 

"Nay,"  replied  the  foreigner.  "But, 
how  do  you  find  time  to  look  for  these 
things  ?  Curiosities  don't  walk  into  your 
house." 

"  My  father-in-law  had  the  nucleus  of  a 
collection  before  my  marriage,"  said  the 
Viscountess  Popinot.  "He  loved  the 
Arts,  and  was  fond  of  masterpieces,  but 
the  principal  part  of  his  treasures  came 
through  me  I " 

"  Through  you,  madame  ?  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  one  so  young  should  have  been 
infected  with  these  vices?" 

The  Russians  are  so  imitative  that  all 
the  evils  of  civilization  find  an  echo  with 
them.   Bric-a-bracomania  is  quite  the  rage 


216 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


at  St.  Petersburg  ;  and  in  consequence  of 
the  intrepidity  which  is  natural  to  Rus- 
sians, they  have  caused  so  great  a  rise  in 
the  article  (as  Remonencq  would  say) 
that  collections  will  become  impossible. 
This  particula r  Russian  pi'ince  had  come 
to  Paris  simply  and  solely  with  a  view  to 
forming  a  collection. 

"  Prince,"  said  the  Viscountess  Popinot, 
"  this  treasure  came  to  me  through  the 
death  of  a  cousin,  who  was  very  fond  of 
me,  and  had  spent  upward  of  forty  j-ears 
(reckoning  from  1805)  in  piling  up  in 
every  land  under  the  sun  (and  especially 
in  Italy)  all  these  masterpieces." 

"What  was  his  name?"  inquired  the 
nobleman. 

"Pons,"  replied  President  Camusot. 

"He  was  a  charming  man,"  said  Ma- 
dame Camusot  in  her  dulcet  falsetto  ;  "  a 
man  of  the  greatest  talent  and  originalitj', 
combined  with  much  kindness  of  heart. 
This  fan,  which  you  admire,  my  lord,  and 
which  once  belonged  to  Madame  de  Pom- 
padour, was  placed  in  my  hands  one  fine 
morning  by  Monsieur  Pons,  who  accom- 
panied the  gift  with  a  charming  little 
phrase,  which  you  will  pardon  me  for  not 
repeating." 

As  Madame  de  Marville  uttered  tliese 
words,  she  looked  at  her  daughter. 

"  Tell  us  what  the  little  phrase  was, 
Madame  la  Vicomtesse,"  said  the  Russian 
prince. 

"  The  little  phrase  is  worthy  of  the  fan, ' ' 
replied  the  Adscountess  (whose  "little 
phrase  "  was  stereotj-ped).  "  He  said  to 
my  mother  that  it  was  high  time  that 
that  which  had  been  in  the  hands  of  Vice 
should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  Virtue." 

The  nobleman  looked  at  Madame  Camu- 
sot de  Marville  with  an  air  of  doubt  that 
was  extremely  flattering  to  so  lean  a  lady. 

"  Monsieur  Pons  was  so  attached  to  us 
that  he  dined  with  us  three  or  four  times 
a  week,"  resumed  Madame  Camusot; 
"  we  knew  how  to  appreciate  him,  and 
artists  enjoy  the  society  of  those  who  can 
appreciate  their  humor.  My  husband, 
moreover,  was  his  only  kinsman ;  and 
when  this  fortune  came  to  Monsieur  de 
Marville,  who  in  no  way  expected  it,  Mon- 


sieur Popinot  chose  to  buj'  the  whole  col- 
lection rather  than  allow  it  to  be  sold  by 
auction  ;  while  we,  for  our  part,  preferred 
disposing  of  it  in  that  way,  for  it  would  be 
so  extremely  painful  to  witness  the  dis- 
persion of  those  beautiful  things  which 
afforded  so  much  amusement  to  our  dear 
cousin.  Elie  Magus  acted  as  valuer  on 
that  occasion,  and  thus  it  was,  my  lord, 
that  I  was  enabled  to  become  the  owner 
of  the  cottage  built  by  j'our  uncle,  and  in 
which  we  hope  that  yon  will  do  us  the 
pleasure  of  being  our  guest." 

A  year  has  elapsed  since  Gaudissard 
transferred  to  other  hands  the  license  of 
the  theater  over  which  he  presided,  but 
M.  Topinard  is  still  its  treasurer.  Mon- 
sieur Topinard,  however,  has  grown  mo- 
rose, misanthropical,  and  taciturn  ;  he  is 
supposed  to  have  committed  some  crime ; 
while  the  ill-natured  wags  of  the  theater 
maintain  that  his  chagrin  arises  from 
his  having  married  Lolotte.  The  very 
name  of  Fraisier  makes  the  worthy  Topi- 
nard start.  It  may  perhaps  be  considered 
singular  that  the  only  heart  worthy  of 
Pons's  should  be  found  among  the  hum- 
blest employes  of  a  boulevard  theater. 

The  prediction  of  Madame  Fontaine 
made  so  forcible  an  impression  upon  Ma- 
dame Remonencq  that  she  is  unwilling 
to  retire  into  the  country  and  remains  in 
her  magnificent  shop  on  the  Boulevard  de 
la  Madeleine.  She  is  once  more  a  widow. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Auvergnat,  hav- 
ing taken  the  precaution  to  have  the  mar- 
riage contract  so  drawn  up  that  all  the 
property  should  go  to  the  survivor,  placed 
a  liqueur  glass  of  vitriol  within  his  wife's 
reach,  in  the  expectation  that  she  would 
make  a  mistake.  She,  however,  having, 
with  the  very  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
changed  the  position  of  the  glass,  it  was 
Romonencq  himself  who  swallowed  its 
contents.  This  end — a  fitting  end  for 
such  a  miscreant — is  an  argument  in 
favor  of  the  existence  of  Providence — 
that  Providence  which  (on  account  per- 
haps of  its  too  frequent  introduction  into 
dramatic  catastrophes)  painters  of  life 
are  accused  of  forgetting. 

Excuse  the  errors  of  the  transcriber  I 


WHY    TEE    ATHEIST    PRAYED. 


217 


m. 


WHY    THE    ATHEIST    PRAYED. 


Doctor  Bianchox,  a  phj-sician  to  whom 
science  is  indel^ted  for  a  grand  physio- 
logical theory,  and  who,  thoug-h  still  a 
youug  man,  is  considered  one  of  the  ce- 
lebrities of  the  School  of  Paris  (itself  a 
center  of  light  to  which  all  the  physicians 
of  Europe  pay  homage),  had  practiced 
surgery  for  a  long  time  before  he  devot- 
ed himself  to  medicine.  His  early  studies 
were  directed  by  one  of  the  greatest  of 
French  surgeons,  a  man  who  passed 
through  the  scientific  world  like  a  meteor 
— the  celebrated  Despleins.  As  his  ene- 
mies themselves  acknowledge,  an  intrans- 
mittable  method  was  buried  in  his  tomb. 
Like  all  men  of  genius  he  had  no  heirs ; 
he  can'ied — and  he  carried  away  every- 
thing with  him. 

The  fame  of  a  surgeon  is  like  the  fame 
of  an  actor ;  it  exists  only  as  long  as  they 
live,  and  their  talent  is  no  longer  appre- 
ciable after  they  have  disappeared.  Act- 
ors and  surgeons,  like  great  singers  also, 
and  those  masters  who  increase  the  power 
of  music  tenfold  by  their  execution,  are 
all  heroes  of  the  moment.  Despleins  him- 
self is  a  proof  of  this  similarity  between 
the  destinies  of  these  transitory  geniuses; 
his  name,  yesterday  so  celebrated,  is  to- 
day almost  forgotten  ;  it  will  last  only  in 
his  special  sphere,  and  will  not  pass  be- 
yond it.  But  are  not  unheard-of  circum- 
stances required  for  the  name  of  a  savant 
to  pass  beyond  the  domain  of  his  science 
into  the  general  historj^  of  humanity  ? 
Had  Despleins  that  universality  of  knowl- 
edge which  makes  a  man  the  Word,  the 
Expression  of  an  age  ? 

Despleins  possessed  a  divine  glance  ;  he 
penetrated  into  the  patient  and  his  dis- 
ease by  a  natural  or  acquired  tuition 
which  enabled  him  to  seize  the  diagnos- 


tics peculiar  to  the  individual,  and  taking 
into  consideration  the  atmospheric  condi- 
tions and  the  peculiarities  of  the  tempera- 
ment, to  determine  the  precise  time,  the 
hour,  the  minute  for  an  operation  to  take 
place.  In  order  thus  to  proceed  in  con- 
cert with  nature,  had  he  studied  the 
incessant  juncture  between  beings  and 
elementary  substances  contained  in  the 
atmosphere  or  furnished  by  the  earth  for 
their  absorption  and  preparation  by  man, 
in  order  that  he  may  draw  from  them  a 
peculiar  expression  ?  Did  he  proceed  by 
that  deductive  and  analogical  power  to 
which  the  genius  of  Cuvier  is  due  ? — How- 
ever that  may  be,  he  made  himself  the 
confidant  of  the  flesh,  by  reMng  on  the 
present  he  comprehended  it  in  the  past 
and  the  future.  But  did  he  sum  up  all 
science  in  his  own  person  as  Hippocrates, 
Galen,  and  Aristotle  did  ?  Has  he  led  a 
whole  school  to  new  worlds?  No.  If  it 
is  impossible  to  deny  that  this  perpetual 
observer  of  human  chemistry  possessed 
the  ancient  science  of  magisra — that  is  to 
say,  the  knowledge  of  the  elements  in 
fusion,  of  the  causes  of  life,  of  life  before 
life,  of  what  from  its  preparations  it  will 
be  before  it  is,  still  it  is  but  just  to  admit 
that  evei'j'thing  in  him  was  pei*sonal  ;•  he 
was  isolated  in  his  life  by  egoism,  and  to- 
daj'  his  egoism  is  the  suicide  of  his  fame. 
Upon  his  tomb  rises  no  sonorous  statue 
pi'oclaiming  to  the  future  the  mysteries 
which  genius  seeks  at  its  expense.  But 
perhaps  the  talent  of  Despleins  was  part 
and  parcel  of  his  belief,  and  consequently 
mortal.  To  him  the  terrestrial  atmos- 
phere was  a  generative  bag ;  he  could  see 
the  earth  like  an  egg  in  its  shell;  and  not 
bemg  able  to  decide  whether  the  egg  or 
the  fowl  came  fli"st,  he  admitted  neither 


218 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  shell  nor  the  egg.  He  believed  nei- 
ther in  the  animal  anterior  nor  in  the 
spirit  posterior  to  man. 

Despleins  was  not  in  douht,  he  afQrmed. 
In  his  frank,  mimixed  atheism  he  was  like 
so  many  savants,  the  best  men  in  the 
world,  but  invincible  atheists,  such  athe- 
ists as  religious  men  will  not  acknowledge 
can  exist.  This  opinion  could  not  be  other- 
wise in  a  man  accustomed  from  early  youth 
to  dissect  the  being  par  excellence  before, 
duiing,  and  after  his  life,  to  search  him 
through  all  his  organization,  without  find- 
ing that  single  soul  which  is  so  necessa- 
ry to  religious  theories.  Recognizing  in 
man  a  cerebral  center,  a  nervous  center, 
and  an  aerosanguineous  center,  the  two 
former  supplying  each  other's  places  so 
well  that  he  was  convinced  during  the 
last  two  or  three  days  of  his  life  that  the 
sense  of  hearing  was  not  absolutely  nec- 
essarj'  for  hearing,  nor  the  sense  of  sight 
absolutely  necessary  for  seeing,  and  that 
the  solar  plexus  could  replace  them  be- 
yond suspicion  of  any  change  ;  •  Despleins, 
I  say,  finding  two  souls  in  man,  confirmed 
his  atheism  by  this  fact,  although  it  still 
proves  nothing  on  the  subject  of  God. 
This  man,  it  is  said,  died  in  the  final  im- 
penitence of,  unhappily,  so  many  fine 
geniuses ;  may  God  forgive  them  ! 

The  life  of  this  really  great  man  be- 
trayed many  pettinesses,  to  use  the  phrase 
of  enemies  anxious  to  diminish  his  reputa- 
tion, but  which  it  would  be  more  correct 
to  call  apparent  contradictions.  Never 
having  had  any  cognizance  of  the  motives 
on  which  men  of  higher  intellect  act,  the 
envious  or  stupid  immediately  seize  upon 
some  superficial  contradictions  in  order 
to .  draw  up  an  indictment  on  which  thej' 
obtain  a  momentary  verdict.  If,  later  on, 
success  crowns  the  combinations  they  have 
attacked,  by  demonstrating  the  relation 
of  the  preparations  to  the  results,  still  a 
few  of  their  advance  guard  of  calumnies 
always  survive. 

Thus,  in  our  own  time.  Napoleon  was 
condemned  by  his  contemporaries  when 
he  stretched  out  the  wings  of  his  eagle 
over  England  ;  1822  was  necessarj^  to  ex- 
plain 1804  and  the  flat  bottom  boats  at 
Boulogne. 


In  the  case  of  Despleins,  Ids  reputation 
and  scientific  knowledge  bemg  unassail- 
able, his  enemies  found  ground  for  attack 
in  his  extraordinary  temper  and  his  moral 
character  ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  certainly 
did  possess  that  quality  which  the  English 
call  "eccentricity."  At  times  he  dressed 
superbly,  like  Crebillon,  the  tragic  writer, 
then  all  at  once  he  would  affect  a  strange 
indifference  in  the  matter  of  clothes ; 
sometimes  he  apijcared  in  a  carriage, 
sometimes  on  foot.  He  was  by  turns 
brusk  and  kind,  though  apparently 
hard  and  stingy ;  yet  he  was  capable 
of  offering  his  fortune  to  his  masters 
when  they  were  in  exile,  and  they  act- 
ually did  him  the  honor  of  accepting  it 
for  a  few  days.  No  man  has  been  the 
object  of  more  contradictory  judgments. 
Although,  for  the  sake  of  a  cordon  noir, 
which  physicians  have  no  business  to 
solicit,  he  was  capable  of  dropping  a^ 
book  of  Hours  out  of  his  pocket  at 
court,  it  is  certain  that,  inwardly,  he 
laughed  at  the  whole  thing.  He  had  a 
profound  contempt  for  mankind,  for  he 
had  studied  them  from  above  and  below  ; 
he  had  caught  them  with  their  true  ex- 
pressions in  the  midst  of  the  most  seri- 
ous and  of  the  pettiest  actions  of   life. 

The  qualities  of  a  great  man  are  often 
consolidate.  If  among  these  giants  one 
has  more  talent  than  esprit,  still  his 
esprit  has  a  wider  range  than  that  of 
a  man  whom  one  simply  calls  "a  man  of 
esprit.''  All  genius  presupposes  intui- 
tion ;  this  intuition  may  be  directed  to 
some  special  subject ;  but  a  man  who 
can  see  a  flower  must  be  able  to  see  the 
sun.  The  doctor  who  is  asked  by  a  cour- 
tier whose  life  he  has  saved,  "  How  is  the 
emperor?"  and  answers,  "The  courtier 
is  recovering,  the  man  will  follow  !  "  is 
not  only  a  surgeon  or  a  physician,  he  is 
also  prodigiously  spirituel.  Thus  the 
close  and  patient  observer  of  humanity 
will  justify  the  exorbitant  pretensions  of 
Despleins,  and  will  believe  him — as  he  be- 
lieved himself— to  have  been  as  capable 
of  making  quite  as  great  a  minister  as  he 
was  a  surgeon. 

Of  all  the  pupils  that  Despleins  had  at 
his  hospital,  Horace  Bianchon  was  one  of 


WHY    THE    ATHEIST    PRAYED. 


219 


those  to  whom  he  was  most  warmly  at- 
tached. Before  going-  into  residence  at 
the  Hotel  Dieu,  Horace  Bianchon  was  a 
student  of  medicine,  and  lodged  in  the 
Latin  Quarter  at  a  wretched  pension, 
known  under  the  name  of  La  Maison  Vau- 
quer.  At  this  place  the  poor  youth  ex- 
perienced the  pangs  of  that  acute  poverty 
which  acts  as  a  sort  of  cresset  from  which 
young  men  of  great  talent  should  come 
forth  refined  and  incorruptible,  hke  dia- 
monds that  can  be  subjected  to  any  shock 
without  breaking.  In  the  violent  flames 
of  passions,  just  freed  from  restraint, 
they  acquire  habits  of  the  most  unswerv- 
ing probitj^  and  accustom  themselves  by 
means  of  the  constant  labor  where^^■ith 
they  have  baffled  and  confined  their  ap- 
petites to  those  struggles  which  await  on 
genius.  Horace  was  a  straightforward 
young  man,  incapable  of  double-dealing 
in  a  question  of  honor,  going  straight  to 
the  point  without  palavering,  and  as 
ready  to  pawn  his  cloak  for  a  friend  as 
to  give  him  his  working  time  or  his  even- 
ings. He  was  one  of  those  friends  who 
do  not  trouble  themselves  about  what 
they  receive  in  exchange  for,  what  thej' 
give,  bemg  certain  of  receiving  in  their 
turn  more  than  they  have  given.  Most 
of  his  friends  had  that  inward  respect  for 
him  which  unobstrusive  goodness  inspires, 
and  many  of  them  wei'e  afraid  of  his  cen- 
sure. 

But  Horace  displayed  his  good  qualities 
without  priggishness.  He  was  neither  a 
Pui'itan  nor  a  preacher;  he  swore  with  a 
will  when  he  gave  advice,  and  was  quite 
ready  to  take  good  cheer  if  the  occasion 
offered.  He  was  good  company,  not 
more  prudish  than  a  trooper,  open  and 
straightforward  —  not  like  a  sailor  —  a 
sailor  nowadays  is  a  wilr  diplomatist — 
but  like  a  fine  young  man  who  has  noth- 
ing in  his  life  to  hide,  he  held  his  head 
high,  and  walked  on  with  a  light  heart. 
In  fact,  to  sum  up  everything  in  a  word, 
Horace  was  the  Pylades  of  more  than  one 
Orestes  —  creditors  serving  nowadays  as 
the  nearest  representation  of  the  ancient 
Furies.  He  wore  his  povei-t3'  with  that 
gayety  which  is  perhaps  one  of  the  great- 
est   elements    of   courage,  and,   like    all 


those  who  have  nothing,  he  contracted 
few  debts.  As  sober  as  a  camel,  and  as 
watchful  as  a  stag,  his  ideas  and  his  con- 
duct were  equally  unwavering. 

The  happiness  of  Bianchons  life  began 
on  the  day  on  which  the  famous  surgeon 
received  a  proof  of  the  faults  and  good 
qualities  which,  the  one  as  much  as  the 
other,  made  Doctor  Horace  Bianchon 
doubly  precious  to  his  friends.  When  the 
chief  clinical  lecturer  takes  a  ^-oung  man 
under  his  wing,  that  j'oung  man  has,  as 
they  say,  his  foot  in  ttie  stirrup. 

Despleins  did  not  fail  to  take  Bianchon 
with  him  as  his  assistant  to  wealthy 
houses,  where  some  present  almost  al- 
waj's  found  its  way  into  the  pupil's  purse, 
and  where  the  mysteries  of  Parisian  life 
were  insensibly  revealed  to  his  provincial 
experience.  He  kept  him  in  his  study 
during  consultations,  and  gave  him  em- 
ployment there.  Sometimes  he  would 
send  him  to  accompany  a  rich  patient  to 
the  baths.  In  fact,  he  nursed  a  practice 
for  him.  Consequently,  at  the  end  of  a 
certain  time,  the  despot  of  surgery  had  a 
seid.  These  two  men,  one  at  the  height 
of  his  celebrity  and  at  the  head  of  his 
own  science,  enjoying  an  immense  fortune 
and  an  immense  reputation  ;  the  other,  a 
humble  Omega,  without  either  fortune  or 
fame — became  intimates.  The  great  Des- 
pleins told  his  assistant  everything.  He 
knew  if  such  and  such  a  woman  had  sat 
on  a  chair  by  the  master,  or  on  the  fa- 
mous couch  which  stood  in  the  studj',  and 
on  which  he  slept.  He  knew  thoroughly 
the  great  man's  temperament — half  hon, 
half  bull— which  at  lafet  developed  and 
amplified  his  bust  to  such  a  degree  as  to 
cause  his  death  by  enlargement  of  the 
heart.  He  studied  the  strange  comers 
of  that  busy  life,  the  projects  of  its  sordid 
avarice,  the  hopes  of  the  politician  hid- 
den beneath  the  savant ;  he  could  foresee 
the  deceptions  which  awaited  the  one 
sentiment  buried  in  a  heart  not  so  much 
bronzen  as  bronzed. 

One  day  Bianchon  told  Despleirts  that 
a  poor  water-carrier  of  le  quartier  Saint 
Jacques  had  a  terrible  illness  caused  by 
fatigue  and  poverty  ;  the  poor  Auvergnat 
had  eaten  nothing  but  potatoes  during 


220 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


the  great  winter  of  1S21.  Despleins  left 
all  his  patients;  he  flew,  at  the  risk  of 
breaking-  his  horse's  wind,  followed  by 
Bianchon,  to  the  poor  nuin"s,  and  himself 
had  him  carried  into  the  private  hospital 
founded  by  the  celebrated  Dubois,  in  le 
faubourg  Saint  Denis.  He  went  and  at- 
tended the  man,  and  when  he  had  cured 
him  gave  him  the  necessary  sum  to  buy 
a  horse  and  a  water-cart.  This  Auverg- 
nat  was  remarkable  for  an  original  trait. 
One  of  his  friends  fell  ill,  so  he  promptly 
brought  him  to  his  benefactor,  saying, 
"I  could  not  beiir  for  him  to  go  to  any 
one  else." 

Despleins,  crabbed  as  he  was,  grasped 
the  water-carrier's  hand,  and  said,  '•  Bring 
them  all  to  me."  Then  he  got  this  son  of 
Le  Cantal  taken  in  at  the  Hotel  Dieu,  and 
took  the  greatest  care  of  him  while  he 
was  there.  Bianchon  had  already  several 
times  noticed  in  his  chief  a  predilection 
for  Auvcrgnats,  and  especially  for  water- 
carriers  ;  but  as  Despleins  made  his  duties 
at  the  Hotel  Dieu  a  sort  of  point  of  honor, 
he  did  not  see  anything  so  \cvy  strange 
in  it.  One  day  as  Bianchon  was  crossing 
la  place  Saint  Sulpice,  he  caught  sight  of 
his  master  going  into  the  church.  Des- 
pleins, who  at  that  time  never  went  a 
step  out  of  his  cabriolet,  was  on  foot, 
and  slipped  out  of  la  rue  du  Petit  Lion 
as  if  he  had  been  into  a  house  of  doubtful 
reputation.  Naturally  seized  with  curi- 
osity, the  assistant,  who  knew  his  mas- 
ter's opinions,  and  was  un  cahaniste  en 
dyable  (with  a  y,  which  seems  in  Rabelais 
to  imply  a  superiority  in  devylrie),  slipped 
also  into  Saint  Sulpice.  He  was  not  a 
little  astonished  at  seeing  the  great  Des- 
pleins— that  atheist  without  pity  for  the 
angels;  in  fact,  the  dauntless  desireur 
kneeling  humbly  on  his  knees,  and  where? 
In  the  chapel  of  the  Virgin,  at  which  he 
was  hearing  a  mass.  He  gave  for  the 
expenses  of  the  ceremony,  he  gave  for  the 
poor,  as  serious  all  the  time  as  if  he  had 
been  performing  an  operation. 

Bianthon  did  not  like  to  appear  to  be 
sp\ing  upon  the  first  surgeon  of  the  Hotel 
Dieu,  so  he  went  away.  It  chanced  that 
Despleins  had  invited  him  to  dinner  that 
very  daj^  not  at  his  own  house,  but  at 


a  restaurant.  At  dessert  Bianchon  suc- 
ceeded by  skillful  maneuvering  in  bring- 
ing the  conversation  round  to  the  subject 
of  the  mass. 

Despleins  reveled  in  giving  vent  to  his 
atheistic  caprices ;  he  poured  forth  a  flood 
of  Voltairian  pleasantry,  or — to  be  move 
exact —  a  horrible  parodj^  of  Le  Citateur. 

"  Ho  !  ho  !  "  said  Bianchon  to  himself. 
"  What  has  become  of  my  morning  de- 
vot?"  He  kept  silence;  he  doubted 
whether  it  was  his  chief  that  he  had 
seen  at  Saint  Sulpice.  Despleins  would 
not  have  taken  the  trouble  to  lie  to  Bian- 
chon ;  they  knew  each  other  too  well ; 
they  had  already  exchanged  thoughts  on 
equally'  serious  subjects,  and  discussed 
systems  de  natura  rerum,  probing  or 
dissecting  them  with  the  knives  and 
scalpel  of  incredulity.  Three  months 
passed  ;  Bianchon  did  not  follow  this  up, 
although  the  fact  remained  stamped  in 
his  memory.  He  determined  to  watch 
Despleins.  He  made  a  note  of  the  day 
and  the  hour  when  he  had  caught  him 
going  into  Saint  Sulpice,  and  determined 
to  be  there  the  j'ear  following  at  the  same 
day  and  hour  to  see  if  he  couid  catch  him 
again.  If  he  did,  the  regular  recurrence 
of  his  devotion  would  justify  a  scientific 
investigation,  for  it  would  not  be  becom- 
ing in  so  great  a  man  to  show  a  direct 
contradiction  between  his  thought  and 
his  action. 

The  following  year,  at  the  day  and  hour 
named,  Bianchon,  who  was  by  this  time 
Despleins's  assistant  no  longer,  saw  his 
friend's  cabriolet  stopping  at  the  corner 
of  la  rue  de  Tournon  and  la  rue  du 
Petit  Lion ;  from  there  Despleins  crept 
along  the  walls  of  St.  Sulpice,  and  again 
lieai'd  his  mass  at  the  altar  of  the  Virgin. 
It  certainly  was  Despleins  !  the  chief  sur- 
geon, the  atheist  in  pelto,  the  chance 
devot.  The  plot  was  thickening.  The 
famous  savant's  persistency  complicated 
it  all. 

When  Despleins  had  gone  out,  Bianchon 
went  up  to  the  sacristan  who  had  come 
to  unvest  the  chapel,  and  asked  him 
whether  the  gentleman  was  a  regular 
attendant  there. 

"I  have  been  here  for  twenty  years, " 


WHY    THE    ATHEIST    PRAYED. 


221 


said  the  sncristan,  "and  all  that  time 
Monsieur  Despleins  has  come  four  times 
a  year  to  hear  this  mass ;  he  founded  it 
himself." 

"A  foundation  by  him!"  said  Bian- 
chon,  as  he  walked  away.  "It's  a  great 
mj'stery^ — a  thing  enough  of  itself  to 
make  a  doctor  incredulous." 

Some  time  passed  hy  before  Doctor 
Bianchon,  although  he  was  Despleins's 
friend,  was  in  a  position  to  talk  to  him 
of  this  strange  incident  in  his  life.  If 
they  met  in  consultation  or  in  society,  it 
was  difficult  to  find  that  moment  of  con- 
fidence and  solitude  when  one  sits  with 
one's  feet  on  the  fire-dogs  and  one's  head 
resting  on  the  back  of  an  armchair,  when 
two  men  tell  each  other  their  secrets. 

At  last,  seven  years  later,  after  the 
Revolution  of  1830,  when  the  people 
rushed  upon  the  archbishop's  palace, 
when  Republican  inspiration  drove  them 
to  destroy  the  gilded  crosses  that  flashed 
up  like  lightning  in  this  immense  ocean  of 
houses,  when  disbelief  side  by  side  with 
sedition  stalked  the  streets,  Bianchon 
caught  Despleins '  again  going  into  Saint 
Sulpice.  The  doctor  followed,  and  took  a 
place  near  his  friend  without  making  him 
the  least  sign  or  showing  the  least  sur- 
prise. They  heard  the  votive  mass  to- 
gether. 

"Tell  me,  mon  cAer,""said  Bianchon  to 
Despleins,  when  they  were  outside  the 
church,  "what  is  the  reason  for  this  capw- 
cinade of  yours ?  I  have  now  caught  aou 
three  times  going  to  mass — you!  You 
must  give  me  a  reason  for  this  mysterious 
proceeding,  and  explain  the  flagrant  in- 
consistency between  your  opinions  and 
your  practice.  You  don't  believe  in  God, 
and  yet  you  go  to  mass  !  My  dear  mas- 
ter, you  are  really  bound  to  answer 
me." 

"  I  am  like  many  devots,  men  pro- 
foundly religious  in  appearance,  but  quite 
as  much  atheists  as  we  are,  you  and  I." 

Then  came  a  torrent  of  epigrams  on 
certain  pohtical  personages,  the  best 
known  of  whom  represent  in  this  century 
a  second  edition  of  Moliere's  "TartufTe." 

"I  did  not  ask  for  all  that,"  said  Bian- 
chon.    "I  want  to  know  the  reason  for 


what  you  have  just  been  doing  here ;  why 
did  you  found  this  mass  ?  " 

"Ma  fois,  mon  cher  ami,"  said  Des- 
pleins. "  I  am  on  the  brink  of  the  grave, 
so  it  is  as  well  that  I  should  speak  to  you 
of  the  beginning  of  my  life." 

At  this  moment  Bianchon  and  the  great 
man  happened  to  be  in  la  rue  des  Quati-e- 
Vents,  one  of  the  most  hoj-rible  streets  in 
Paris.  Despleins  pointed  tithe  sixth  story 
of  one  of  those  houses  like  an  obelisk,  with 
a  side  door  opening  into  an  alley,  at  the 
end  of  which  is  a  tortuous  staircase  lit  by 
inside  lights — well  named,  jotirs  de  souf- 
f  ranee.  It  was  a  greenish-colored  house; 
on  the  basement  lived  a  furniture  dealer, 
who  seemed  to  lodge  a  different  misery-  on 
each  of  his  floors.  Despleins  raised  his 
arm  with  an  emphatic  gesture  and  said 
to  Bianchon :  "'  I  lived  up  there  for  two 
years ! " 

"I  know  it;  D'Arthez  lived  there.  I 
used  to  come  here  almost  every  day  when 
I  was  a  youth;  we  used  to  call  it  '  Le  bocal 
aux  grands  liommes.'    Well  ?  " 

"The  mass  that  I  have  just  heard  is 
connected  with  events  which  took  place 
at  the  time  when  I  lived  in  the  garret  in 
which  you  tell  me  D'Arthez  used  to  live; 
the  one  with  the  window  where  the  line 
with  the  clothes  on  it  is  floating  over  the 
pot  of  flowers.  I  had  such  a  rough  start, 
my  dear  Bianchon,  that  I  can  dispute  the 
palm  of  the  sufferings  of  Paris  with  any 
one.  I  have  endured  everything :  hun- 
ger, thirst,  want  of  mone^',  of  clothes,  of 
boots  and  shoes,  and  of  linen  —  all  the 
hardest  phases  of  poverty.  I  have  blown 
on  my  numbed  fingers  in  that  '  hocal  aux 
grands  hommes  ' — I  should  like  to  go  with 
you  and  see  it  again.  I  worked  through 
one  winter  when  I  could  see  my  head 
steaming  and  a  cloud  of  my  own  breath 
rising  like  j'ou  see  the  breath  of  horses  on 
a  frosty  day.  I  do  not  know  where  a  man 
gets  his  support  from  to  enable  him  to 
offer  any  resistance  to  such  a  life.  I  was 
alone,  without  help,  without  a  sou  either 
to  buy  books  or  to  pay  the  expenses  of  my 
medical  education.  Not  having  a  friend, 
my  irritable,  gloomy,  restless  tempera- 
ment stood  in  my  way.  No  one  was  will- 
ing to  see  in  my  irritability  the  labors  and 


222 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


difficulties  of  a  man  who,  from  the  bottom 
of  the  social  state  where  he  is,  is  toiling 
to  reach  the  surface.  But — I  can  say 
this  to  tjou;  before  you  I  have  no  need 
of  disguise  —  I  had  that  foundation  of 
noble  sentiments  and  vivid  sensibil- 
itj',  which  will  always  be  the  appan- 
age of  men  who  are  strong  enough 
to  climb  to  any  summit  whatever,  af- 
ter having  tradged  for  a  long  time 
through  the  sloughs  of  poverty.  1  could 
get  nothing  from  my  family,  nor  my 
home,  beyond  the  meager  allowance  they 
made  me.  At  this  time  then,  all  I  had 
to  eat  in  the  morning  was  a  little  loaf 
which  the  baker  in  la  rue  du  Petit  Lion 
sold  me  cheaper,  because  it  had  been 
baked  the  evening  before,  or  the  evening 
before  that.  This  I  crumbled  into  some 
milk  ;  so  my  morning  meal  onlj'  cost  me 
two  sous.  I  oni^-  dined  every  other  day, 
at  a  pension  where  the  dinner  cost  six- 
teen sous.  In  this  way  I  only  spent  nine 
sous  a  day.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do 
what  care  I  had  to  take  of  my  clothes, 
and  my  boots  and  shoes  !  I  don't  know 
whether  we  feel  later  as  much  trouble 
over  the  treason  of  a  comrade  as  we  feel 
— you  have  felt  it  too — at  the  sight  of  the 
mocking  grin  of  a  shoe  that  is  coming  un- 
sewed,  or  at  the  sound  of  a  split  in  the 
lining  of  an  overcoat.  I  drank  nothing 
but  water.  I  had  the  greatest  respect 
for  the  cce/es.  Zoppi  seemed  to  me  a  sort 
of  Promised  Land  where  the  Luculli  of 
the  pays  latin  alone  had  rights  of  pres- 
ence. Should  I  ever  be  able,  I  said  to 
myself  sometimes,  to  take  a  cup  of  coffee 
and  cream  there,  and  play  a  game  of 
dominoes  ?  Well,  I  carried  into  my  work 
the  fever  with  which  my  poverty  inspired 
me.  I  tried  to  acquire  positive  details  of 
knowledge,  that  I  might  possess  an  im- 
mense personal  value,  and  so  deserve  the 
place  I  was  to  reach  on  the  daj'  when  I 
passed  out  of  my  state  of  nothing-ness. 
I  consumed  more  oil  than  bread ;  the 
light  that  lit  me  during  those  stubborn 
nights  cost  me  more  than  my  food.  The 
struggle  was  long,  obstinate,  and  without 
any  consolation.  I  awoke  no  sympathy 
about  me.  In  oi'der  to  make  friends,  a 
j'omig  man  must  mix  with  his  fellpws, 


possess  a  few  sous  to  be  able  to  go  and 
drink  with  them,  and  go  with  them  every- 
where where  students  do  go !  I  had 
nothing !  and  no  one  in  Paris  realizes 
what  a  nothing  '  nothing '  is.  If  ever 
there  was  an  occasion  which  might  be- 
tray my  poverty',  I  experienced  that  nerv- 
ous contraction  of  the  gullet  which  makes 
a  patient  believe  that  a  ball  is  rising  np 
into  the  larjmx  out  of  the  oesophagus. 
Later  on  I  met  those  people  who  were 
born  rich,  who  have  never  wanted  for 
anything,  and  do  not  know  the  problem 
of  this  rule  of  three  :  'A  young  man  is  to 
crime  as  a  hundred  sou  piece  is  to  x-' 
These  gilded  idiots  say  to  me :  '  Then 
why  did  you  get  into  debt?  Why  did 
you  contract  such  onerous  obligations  ? ' 
They  remind  me  of  the  princess  who, 
knowing  that  the  people  wei'e  starving 
for  bread,  said :  '  Why  don't  they  buy 
brioches  ? '  I  should  very  much  like  to 
see  one  of  these  rich  people,  who  complain 
that  I  charge  them  too  much  for  operat- 
ing— yes,  I  should  like  to  see  him  alone  in 
Paris  without  a  sou  or  a  scrap  of  baggage, 
without  a  friend  and  witBout  credit,  forced 
to  work  with  his  five  fingers  to  live. 
What  would  he  do  ?  Where  would  he  go 
to  stay  his  hunger  ?  Bianchon,  if  you  have 
seen  me  sometimes  hard  and  bitter,  it 
was  that  I  was  lajing  my  former  troubles 
upon  the  callousness  and  egoism  of  which 
I  have  had  thousands  of  proofs  in  high 
quarters ;  or  I  may  have  been  thinking 
of  the  obstacles  that  hate  and  envy  and 
jealousy  and  calumny  have  raised  between 
me  and  success.  At  Paris,  as  soon  as  cer- 
tain people  see  you  ready  to  put  your  foot 
in  the  stirrup,  some  of  them  catch  you  by 
your  coat-tail ;  others  loose  the  buckle  of 
the  girth  so  that  you  may  fall  and  break 
your  head;  another  takes  the  shoes  off  your 
horse;  another  steals  your  whip;  the 
least  treacherous  is  the  one  you  can  see 
coming  vip  to  shoot  you,  with  1  he  muzzle  of 
his  pistol  close  to  you.  You  have  enough 
talent,  mon  cher  enfant,  to  know  very 
soon  the  horrible,  incessant  warfare  that 
mediocrity  wages  against  a  man  of  greater 
power.  If  you  lose  twenty-five  louis  one 
evening,  the  next  morning  you  will  be 
accused  of  being  a  gambler,  and  your  best 


1, 


Wliy    THE    ATHEIST    PRAYED. 


223 


friends  will  say  that  tlie  night  before  you 
lost  twenty-five  thousand  francs.  If  your 
head  is  bad,  you  will  pass  for  a  lunatic. 
If  you  feel  irritable,  you  will  be  unbear- 
able. If,  in  order  to  resist  this  army  of 
pigmies,  you  collect  your  superior  forces, 
^your  best  friends  will  cry  out  that  you 
want  to  eat  up  ever\i;hing,  that  you  think 
you  have  a  right  to  domineer  and  play 
the  tjTant.  In  short,  your  good  qualities 
wiU  become  faults,  your  faults  will  be- 
come vices,  and  your  ^ices  will  be  crimes. 
If  you  have  saved  a  man,  you  will  have 
killed  him ;  if  your  patient  recovers,  it 
will  be  certain  that  you  have  assured  the 
present  at  the  expense  of  the  future ;  if 
he  is  not  dead,  he  will  die.  Stumble,  and 
■you  will  have  fallen.  Invent  whatever 
you  will,  claim  your  just  rights,  you  will 
be  a  sharp  man,  a  man  difficult  to  deal 
■ftith,  a  man  who  won't  let  young  men 
get  on.  So  you  see,  mon  cher,  if  I  do  not 
believe  in  God,  much  less  do  I  believe  in 
man.  You  recognize  in  me,  don't  you? 
an  entirely  different  Despleins  from  the 
Despleins  whom  every  one  abuses.  But 
don't  let  us  stir  up  the  mud  ! 

"Well,  I  lived  in  that  house;  I  was 
hard  at  work  so  as  to  be  able  to  pass  my 
first  examination  ;  I  hadn't  got  a  stiver. 
I  had  come  to  one  of  those  last  extremities 
when,  you  know,  a  man  says,  '  I  must  en- 
list.' I  had  one  hope.  I  was  expecting 
a  trunk  full  of  linen  from  my  home — a 
present  from  one  of  those  old  aunts  who, 
knowing  nothing  about  Paris,  think  of 
one's  shirts,  mider  the  idea  that  with 
thirty  francs  a  month  their  nephew  lives 
on  ortolans.  The  trunk  arrived  while  I 
was  at  the  school ;  the  carriage  cost  forty 
francs.  The  porter,  a  German  shoe- 
maker, who  lodged  in  a  loft,  had  paid 
the  money  and  kept  the  ti'unk.  I  went 
for  a  wallv  in  la  rue  des  Fosses  Saint  Ger- 
main des  Pres,  and  in  la  rue  de  I'Ecole  de 
Medicine,  but  I  could  not  invent  a  strata- 
gem which  would  deliver  me  up  my  tnmk, 
without  mj^  being  obliged  to  give  the  forty 
francs,  which  I  should  naturally  have 
paid  after  having  sold  the  linen.  My 
stupidity  in  this  taught  me  that  I  had 
no  other  vocation  than  surgerj'.  Delicate 
minds  which  exercise  their  power  in  a 


lofty  sphere  are  wanting  in  that  spirit  of 
intrigue  which  is  so  fertile  in  resource  and 
combination  ;  f/te^r  talent  Ls  chance  ;  they 
do  not  seek— they  ^'ncZ.  Well,  at  night  I 
returned.  My  neighbor,  a  water-carrier, 
named  Bourgeat,  a  man  from  Saint  Flour, 
was  going  in  at  the  same  moment.  We 
knew  each  other  in  the  way  that  two 
lodgei's  get  to  know  each  other  who  have 
rooms  on  the  same  landing  and  hear  each 
other  sleeping,  coughing,  and  dressing, 
until  at  last  they  get  used  to  one  another. 
My  neighbor  informed  me  that  the  land- 
lord, whom  I  owed  for  three  terms,  had 
turned  me  out ;  I  had  to  pack  off  on  the 
following  day.  He  himself  had  notice  to 
quit  on  account  of  his  trade.  The  night 
I  spent  was  the  most  miserable  in  my 
life.  Where  was  I  to  get  a  messenger  to 
carry  my  few  belongings  and  my  books  ? 
How  was  I  to  pay  a  messenger  and  the 
carter  ?  Where  was  I  to  go  ?  I  asked 
myself  these  unanswerable  questions 
again  and  again,  through  my  tears, 
like  madmen  repeating  their  refrains.  I 
fell  asleep.  Poverty  has  a  divine  sleep 
of  its  own,  full  of  beautiful  dreams. 
The  next  morning,  while  I  was  eating 
my  bowl  of  bread  crumbled  into  milk, 
Bourgeat  comes  in  and  says  in  his  bad 
French— 

'•  •  3fonchieur  rEtudiant,  I'm  a  poor 
fellow,  a  foundling  from  the  hospital  at 
Chian  Flour ;  I've  no  father  or  mother, 
and  I"ve  never  been  rich  enough  to  marry. 
You've  not  a  lot  of  people  belonging  to 
j'ou  neither ;  you've  not  got  anj'thing  to 
speak  of.  Look  here,  I've  got  a  hand- 
cart down  below  which  I've  hired  for  two 
chous  an  hour.  It'll  hold  all  our  things : 
if  you're  agreeable,  we'll  look  out  for  a 
place  where  we  can  lodge  together,  as 
we're  driven  out  of  this.  After  ,t11.  it's 
not  such  a  paradise  on  earth.' 

"'I  know  that,  my  good  Bourgeat.'  I 
said ;  '  but  I  am  in  great  difficulties. 
Down  below  I  have  got  a  trunk  con- 
taining linen  worth  a  hundred  ecus;  with 
that  I  should  be  able  to  pay  the  landlord 
and  also  what  I  owe  the  porter,  but  I 
haven't  got  a  hundred  sous.' 

"  '  Hm!  I've  got  some  chink,'  he  an- 
swered cheerfully,  showing  me  a  filthy  old 


lii 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


leather  purse.  '  You'd  better  keep  j^our 
linen.' 

••  Bourg-eat  paid  for  my  three  terms  and 
his  own,  and  settled  with  the  porter.  Then 
he  put  our  furniture  and  my  linen  on  to 
his  barrow  and  pushed  it  through  the 
streets,  stopping-  before  every  house  where 
there  was  a  placard  hung-  out.  /went 
up  to  see  if  the  place  to  let  would  be  likely 
to  suit  us.  At  midday  we  were  still  wan- 
dering about  le  quartier  Latin  without 
having  found  anything.  Tlie  price  was  a 
great  obstacle.  Bourgeat  proposed  that 
we  should  dine  at  a  wine  shop  ;  we  left 
our  barrow  at  the  door. 

"Toward  evening  I  discovered  in  la 
cour  de  Bohan,  passage  du  Commerce, 
two  rooms  separated  by  a  staircase,  at 
the  top  of  a  house,  under  the  tiles.  We 
could  have  lodgings  for  sixty  francs  a 
year  each.  Here,  then,  we  settled  down, 
■  I  and  ray  humble  friend .  We  dined  to- 
gether. Bourgeat,  who  earned  about 
fifty  sous  a  day,  possessed  about  a  hun- 
dred ecus.  He  would  soon  have  been  able 
to  realize  his  ambition  and  bu^^  a  horse 
and  water-cart.  When  he  discovered  my 
situation,  for  he  could  draw  out  my  se- 
crets with  a  depth  of  cunning  and  a  kind- 
ness the  memor3^  of  which  even  now 
touches  my  heai-t,  he  gave  up  for  some 
time  the  ambition  of  his  whole  life.  Bour- 
geat had  worked  in  the  streets  since  he 
was  twenty -two ;  he  sacrificed  his  hun- 
dred ecus  to  my  future." 

Here  Despleins  pressed  Bianchon's  arm. 

'•'  He  gave  me  the  necessary  mone^'  for 
my  examinations.  He  understood,  mon 
ami,  that  I  had  a  mission — that  the  needs 
of  my  intelligence  exceeded  his  own.  He 
took  charge  of  me ;  he  called  me  his  petit; 
he  lent  me  the  money  necessar3'^  for  my 
purchases  of  books ;  sometimes  he  would 
come  in  very  quietly  to  watch  me  at  work; 
in  short,  he  took  all  the  care  of  a  mother 
that  I  might  be  able  to  have  plenty  of 
wholesome  nourishment  instead  of  the 
bad  and  insufficient  food  to  which  I  had 
been  condemned. 

'•■  Bourgeat  was  a  man  of  about  forty, 
with  the  face  of  a  mediaeval  burgher,  a 
promment  forehead,  and  a  head  that  a 
painter  might  have  taken  as  a  model  for 


Lycurgus.  The  poor  man  felt  his  heart 
big  with  dormant  affection  ;  he  had  never 
been  loved  except  by  a  poodle,  which  had 
died  a  short  time  before.  He  was  always 
talking  to  me  about  it,  and  used  to  ask 
me  if  I  thought  the  Church  would  consent 
to  say  masses  for  the  repose  of  its  soul. 
He  said  his  dog  was  a  true  Christian ;  it 
had  accompanied  him  to  church  for  twelve 
years  without  ever  having  barked.  It 
listened  to  the  organ  without  opening  its 
mouth,  sitting  quietly  by  him  with  an 
air  which  made  him  believe  that  it  was 
praying  with  him.  This  man  centered  all 
his  affections  on  me ;  he  accepted  me  as 
a  being  who  came  in  trouble  ;  he  became 
the  most  attentive  of  mothers  to  me,  the 
most  delicate  of  benefactors,  in  short,  the 
ideal  of  that  virtue  which  delights  in  its 
own  work.  If  I  met  him  in  the  streets  he 
cast  on  me  a  look  of  intelligence  full  of 
inconceivable  nobleness.  On  these  occa'- 
sions  he  walked  as  if  he  were  carrying 
nothing;  it  seemed  to  make  him  happy 
to  see  me  in  good  health  and  well  clad. 
In  fact,  his  was  the  devotion  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  love  of  the  grisette,  carried  into 
a  higher  sphere.  He  did  my  commissions, 
woke  me  at  night  at  certain  hours,  cleaned 
my  lamp,  and  polished  our  landing;  he 
was  as  good  a  servant  as  he  was  a  father, 
as  neat  as  an  English  girl.  He  kept 
house ;  like  Philopoemen,  he  sawed  up 
our  wood  ;  doing-  everything  m  a  sim- 
ple waj^  of  his  own  without  ever  compro- 
mising his  dignity,  for  he  seemed  to  feel 
that  the  end  he  had  in  view  could  ennoble 
whatever  he  did.  When  I  left  this  good 
man  to  enter  at  the  Hotel  Dieu  as  a  resi- 
dent, I  cannot  describe  the  sadness  and 
gloom  he  felt  at  the  thought  that  he  could 
no  longer  live  with  me ;  but  he  consoled 
himself  with  the  prospect  of  saving  up 
the  money  necessary  for  the  expenses  of 
mj'  thesis,  and  made  me  promise  to  come 
on  the  days  when  we  had  leave,  to  see 
him.  He  was  proud  of  me ;  he  loved  me 
for  my  own  sake,  and  for  his  own  too.  If 
you  were  to  look  up  my  thesis,  j^ou  would 
see  that  it  was  dedicated  to  him.  During 
the  last  year  of  my  term  of  residence  I 
had  earned  enough  money  to  repay  the 
noble  Auvergnat  all  I  owed  him,  by  buy- 


WHF    THE    ATHEIST    P BATED. 


225 


ing  him  a  horse  and  water-cart.  He  was 
furiously  angry  to  think  that  I  was  de- 
priving- myself  of  the  money,  and  yet  en- 
chanted at  seeing  his  wishes  reahzed  ;  he 
laughed  and  scolded  me  together,  looking 
at  the  horse  and  water-cart,  and  saying, 
as  he  wiped  away  a  tear,  '  It's  too  bad. 
Oh  !  what  a  splendid  cart !  you  ought  not 
to  have  done  it.  .  .  .  The  horse  is  as 
strong  as  an  Auvergnat.'  I  never  saw 
anything  more  touching  than  this  scene. 
Bourgeat  absolutel}'  insisted  on  buying 
me  the  case  of  instruments  mounted  in 
silver  which  you  have  seen  in  my  study; 
to  me  it  is  the  most  precious  thing  I  pos- 
sess. Although  elated  at  my  first  suc- 
cess, he  never  let  the  least  word  escajie 
him  or  the  least  sign  that  implied  :  '  This 
man  is  due  to  me.'  And  j'et  without  him 
poverty  would  have  killed  me.  The  poor 
man  was  killing  himself  for  me ;  he  had 
eaten  nothing  but  bread  rubbed  with  gar- 
lic, so  that  I  might  have  enough  coffee 
for  my  vigils.  He  fell  ill.  As  you  may 
imagine,  I  spent  the  nights  at  his  bedside ; 
I  pulled  him  through  the  first  time,  but 
he  had  a  relapse  two  years  afterward, 
and  in  spite  of  the  most  devoted  care,  in 
spite  of  the  greatest  efforts  of  science,  he 
had  to  give  in.  No  king  was  ever  nursed 
as  he  was.  Yes,  Bianchon,  I  tried  things 
unheard  of  before  to  snatch  that  life  from 
death.  I  would  have  made  him  live,  as 
much  as  anything  that  he  might  witness 
his  own  work,  that  I  might  realize  all  his 
prayers  for  him,  that  I  might  satisfy  the 
only  feeling  of  gratitude  that  has  ever 
filled  my  heart  and  extinguish  a  fire  which 
burns  me  even  now. 

"Bourgeat,"  continued  Despleins,  who 
was  visibly  moved,  after  a  pause,  "  my 
second  father,  died  in  my  arms.  He  left 
me  ever;y^hing  he  possessed  by  a  will  he 
had  had  made  b.y  a  scrivener,  dated  the 
year  when  we  went  to  lodge  in  la  cour  de 
Rohan.  He  had  all  the  faith  of  a  char- 
coal burner;  he  loved  the  Blessed  Virgin 
as  he  would  have  loved  his  wife.  Though 
he  was  an  ardent  Catholic,  he  had  never 
said  a  word  to  me  about  my  irreligion. 
He  besought  me,  when  he  was  in  danger, 
to  spare  no  painS  that  he  might  have  the 


assistance  of  the  Church.  I  had  a  mass 
said  for  him.  every  day.  He  would  often 
express  to  me  during  the  night  fears  as  to 
his  future ;  he  was  afraid  that  he  had  not 
lived  a  holy  enough  life.  Poor  man  !  he 
toiled  from  morning  till  night.  To  whom 
else  could  Paradise,  if  there  is  a  Paradise, 
belong?  He  received  the  sacraments  like 
the  saint  he  was,  and  his  death  was  worthy 
of  his  life.  No  one  followed  his  funeral 
except  me.  When  I  had  placed  my  onlj' 
benefactor  in  the  earth,  I  pondered  how 
I  could  perform  my  obligations  to  him. 
I  remembered  that  he  had  no  family  or 
friends,  or  wife,  or  children ;  but  he  be- 
lieved ;  he  had  a  religious  conviction. 
Had  I  any  right  to  dispute  it  ?  He  had 
spoken  to  me  timidly  about  masses  said 
for  the  repose  of  the  dead.  He  had  not 
chosen  to  impose  that  duty  upon  me, 
thinking  that  it  would  be  like  asking  for 
a  return  for  his  devotion.  As  soon  as  I 
could  establish  a  foundation,  I  gave  the 
necessary  sum  to  Saint  Sulpice  for  having 
four  masses  a  j^ear  said  there.  As  the 
onl}^  thing  I  could  offer  Bourgeat  in  satis- 
faction of  his  pious  wishes,  I  go  in  his 
name,  on  the  day  on  which  this  mass  is 
said  at  the  beginning  of  every  season,  and 
recite  for  him  the  necessary  prayers.  I 
say  with  the  good  faith  of  a  doubter : 
'  My  God,  if  there  is  a  sphere  where  Thou 
puttest  after  their  death  those  who  have 
been  perfect,  think  of  good  Bourgeat ; 
and  if  there  is  anything  for  him  to  suffer, 
give  me  his  sufferings  that  he  may  enter 
more  quickly  into  what  is  called  Paradise.' 
That,  mon  cher,  is  all  that  a  man  of  my 
opinions  can  allow  himself.  God  cannot 
be  annoyed  with  me.  I  swear  to  you,  I 
would  give  mj^  fortune  for  the  belief  of 
Bourgeat  to  enter  into  my  brain." 

Bianchon,  who  attended  Despleins  in 
his  last  illness,  dares  not  affirm  now  that 
the  celebrated  surgeon  died  an  atheist. 
Those  who  beheve  will  like  to  think  that 
the  humble  Auvergnat  will  have  come  to 
open  to  him  the  door  of  heaven,  as  he 
formerly  opened  to  him  the  door  of  that 
earthly  temple  over  which  is  written, 
Aux  grands  homines  la  patrie  Hcon- 
naissante. 


Balzac— II 


226 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


IV. 

MYSTERY  OF  LA  GRANDE   BRETECHE. 


On  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  about  a 
stone's  throw  from  Vendome,  stands  an 
old  brown  house,  with  a  very  steep  roof. 
Even  the  stinking  tan-yards  and  the 
wretched  taverns  found  on  the  outskirts 
of  almost  all  small  towns  have  no  place 
here ;  the  isolation  is  complete.  At  the 
back  of  this  dwelling',  leading  down  to 
the  bank  of  the  river,  is  a  garden.  The 
box,  once  clipped  to  mark  the  walks, 
grows  now  as  it  will;  some  willows 
sprung  from  the  Loire  have  formed  a 
boundary  with  their  rapid  growth,  and 
almost  hide  the  house ;  plants  which  we 
call  weeds  make  the  sloping  bank  beauti- 
ful with  their  luxuriant  growth  ;  the  fruit 
trees,  unpruned  for  ten  years,  form  a 
thicket  with  their  suckers,  and  yield  no 
harvest ;  the  espaliers  have  grown  as 
bushy  as  a  hedge  of  elms ;  paths  once 
sanded  are  covered  -with  purslain  —  or 
rather,  of  the  paths  themselves  there  is 
left  no  trace.  From  the  brow  of  the  hOl 
hang,  as  it  were,  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
castle  of  the  Dukes  of  Vendome  ;  it  is  the 
only  place  whence  the  eye  can  penetrate 
into  this  retreat. 

It  is  said  that  this  strip  of  land  was 
once — at  a  date  difficult  to  fix  exactlj' — 
the  delight  of  a  gentleman  who  spent  his 
time  in  the  cultivation  of  roses  and  tulips ; 
in  fact,  in  horticulture  generally,  espe- 
cially devoting  himself  to  the  rarer  fruits. 
An  arbor — or  rather,  the  ruins  of  one — is 
still  visible,  and  in  it  a  table  which  time 
has  not  yet  entirely  destroyed. '  The  sight 
of  this  garden  which  is  no  more,  reminds 
one  of  the  negative  enjojanentof  life  spent 
peacefully  in  the  country,  just  as  one 
guesses  at  the  story  of  a  successful  mer- 
chant from  the  epitaph  on  his  tomb.  To 
complete    the    sad    and  sweet  thoughts 


which  fasten  here  upon  the  soul,  one  of 
the  walls  bears  a  sun-dial  inscribed  with 
this  legend,  "Ultimam  cogita  " — such  is 
the  reminder  of  its  somewhat  matter-of- 
fact  Christianity.  The  roofs  of  this  house 
are  utterly  ruinous,  the  shutters  are  al- 
ways closed,  the  balconies  full  of  swal- 
lows' nests,  the  doors  forever  shut ;  tall 
grasses  etch  with  their  green  outline  the 
cracks  Ln  the  pavement,  the  bolts  are  red 
with  rust.  Summer  and  winter  the  sun 
and  the  moon  and  the  snow  have  cracked 
the  wood  and  shrunk  the  planks  and 
gnawed  away  the  paint.  Here  silence 
and  gloom  hold  their  untroubled  sway, 
only  birds,  and  cats,  and  rats,  and  mice, 
and  martens  roam  here  unmolested,  and 
fight  their  battles,  and  prey  upon  each 
other.  Over  all  an  invisible  hand  has 
\\antten  the  one  word — Mystery . 

If  you  were  driven  by  your  curiosity  to 
go  round  and  look  at  the  house  on  the 
other  side,  from  the  road,  you  would  no- 
tice a  wide-arched  door,  through  which 
the  children  of  the  neighborhood  have 
made  plenty  of  peep-holes — I  learned  aft- 
erward that  this  door  had  been  past  re- 
pair ten  years  before — and  through  these 
irregular  chinks  you  could  see  the  perfect 
harmony  there  is  between  the  garden 
front  and  the  front  looking  on  to  the 
courtyard.  Here  is  the  same  reign  of  dis- 
order— ^the  flagstones  are  edged  with  tufts 
of  grass,  enormous  cracks  run  like  fur 
rows  over  the  walls,  the  blackened  coping 
is  interlaced  with  festoons  of  countless 
wall  plants,  the  stones  of  the  steps  are 
unjointed,  the  gutters  are  broken,  the 
cord  of  the  bell  has  rotted  away.  Has 
fire  from  heaven  passed  through  this 
dwelling  ?  Did  some  tribunal  decree  that 
this  habitation  should  be  sown  with  salt  ? 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    LA     GRANDE    BRETECHE. 


227 


Has  man  betrayed  France  in  this  place — 
insulted  God  ?  These  are  the  questions 
one  asks  here  ;  only  the  reptiles  writhe 
and  answer  not.  This  empty,  desolate 
house  is  a  vast  enigma,  and  no  man  knows 
the  clew.  It  was  formerly  a  small  manor, 
and  bears  the  name  of  La  Grande 
Breteche. 

During'  my  stay  at  Vendome,  where 
Despleins  had  left  me  to  take  care  of  a 
rich  patient,  the  sight  of  this  strange 
dwelling-  became  one  of  my  keenest  pleas- 
ures. It  was  more  than  a  ruin ;  to  a  rutu 
are  attached  at  least  some  remembrances 
of  incontestable  authenticity ;  but  this 
habitation  still  standing,  slowly  decaying 
beneath  an  avenging  hand,  held  within  it 
a  secret — a  thought  unknown.  At  the 
least  its  mere  existence  was  the  sign  of 
some  strange  caprice.  Many  a  time  of  an 
evening  I  resolutely  approached  the  now 
wild  hedge-row  which  protected  the  tn- 
closure.  I  braved  the  tearing  thorns,  and 
ti'od  this  garden  without  an  owner,  and 
entered  this  possession  no  longer  public  or 
private.  I  stayed  there  whole  hours  gaz- 
ing upon  its  disorder.  Not  even  for  the 
sake  of  learning  the  story — which  I  felt 
certain  would  give  an  explanation  of  this 
strange  scene — -would  I  have  made  a 
single  inquiry  of  any  of  the  gossips  of 
Vendome.  There  I  composed  charming 
romances  ;  I  gave  myself  up  to  little  de- 
bauches of  melancholy  which  delighted 
my  heart. 

If  I  had  Icnown  the  cause  of  this  de- 
sertion (perhaps  a  commonplace  story 
enough),  I  should  have  lost  the  intoxica- 
tion of  these  my  unpublished  poems.  To 
me  this  retreat  represented  the  most 
varied  pictures  of  human  life  clouded  by 
misery.  Now  it  had  the  air  of  a  cloister 
without  inmates  ;  now  the  peace  of  a  cem- 
etery without  the  dead  and  all  their  chat- 
tering epitaphs ;  one  day  it  was  a  lazar- 
house,  the  next  the  palace  of  the  Atridae; 
but  above  all  it  was  the  country  with  its 
hour-glass  existence  and  its  conventional 
ideas.  I  have  often  wept,  I  never  laughed 
there.  More  than  once  I  felt  an  involun- 
tary terror  when  I  heard  above  my  head 
the  duU  whir  of  the  wings  of  some  be- 
lated wood-dove.     There  the  soil  is  so 


dank  you  must  defy  the  lizards  and 
vipers  and  frogs  that  walk  abroad  in 
all  the  wild  liberty  of  Nature.  Above 
aU,  you  must  not  mind  the  cold ;  at  cer- 
tain moments  you  feel  as  though  a  man- 
tle of  ice  were  cast  upon  A'our  shoulders, 
like  the  commandant's  hand  upon  Don 
Juan's  neck. 

One  evening,  just  at  the  moment  I  was 
finishing  a  tragedj'  by  which  I  was  ex- 
plaining to  mj-self  the  phenomenon  of 
this  sort  of  woe  in  effigy,  the  wind  vurned 
an  old  rusty  weathercock,  and  the  cr^'  it 
gave  forth  sounded  like  a  groan  bursting 
from  the  depth  of  the  house ;  I  shivered 
with  terror. 

I  returned  to  my  inn  overpowered  with 
gloomy  thoughts.  When  I  had  supped, 
my  hostess  came  with  a  mysterious  air 
into  my  room  and  said,  "Monsieur,  Mon- 
sieur Regnault  is  here."  "Who  is  Mon- 
sieur Regnault  ?  "  "  Wh}-!  does  not  mon- 
sieur know  Monsieur  Regnault?  Ah, 
that's  very  odd,"  she  said,  and  went 
away.  Suddenly  I  saw  before  me  a  long 
lean  man  ;  he  entered  the  room  like  a 
ram  gathering  itself  up  to  butt  at  a  rival; 
he  presented  a  receding  forehead,  a  little 
pointed  head,  and  a  sallow  face,  not  unUke 
a  glass  of  dirty  water ;  he  might  have 
passed  for  a  ministerial  beadle.  This 
man,  who  was  quite  unknown  to  me, 
wore  a  black  coat,  very  much  worn  at 
the  seams,  but  he  had  a  diamond  in  the 
bosom  of  his  shirt  and  gold  rings  in  his 
ears. 

"Monsieur,  whom  have  I  the  honor  of 
addressing?"  said  I. 

He  seated  himself  upon  a  chair,  ar- 
ranged himself  before  my  fire,  placed  his 
hat  on  my  table,  rubbed  his  hands  to- 
gether and  said,  "Ah!  it's  very  cold. 
Monsieur,  I  am  Monsieur  Regnault."  I 
bowed,  saying  to  myself,  "  II  bondo  cani ! 
let's  see." 

"I  am,"  said  he,  "a  notai-y  in  Ven- 
dome." 

"I  am  charmed  to  hear  it,  monsieur,'' 
said  I,  "  but  I  am  not  in  a  position  to 
make  a  will,  for  reasons  known  to  my- 
self." 

"Just  one  moment!  "  he  replied,  liais- 
ing   his    hand   as    if  to    impose    silenoe. 


228 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Allow  mc,  monsieur,  allow  me  !  I 
learn  that  you  have  occasionally  gone 
to  walk  in  the  garden  of  La  Grande 
Breteche." 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Just  one  moment !  "  said  he,  repeat- 
ing his  gesture  ;  "  this  of  itself  constitutes 
an  actionable  offense.  Monsieur,  I  am 
come  in  the  name  and  as  executor  under 
the  will  of  niadame,  the  late  Comtesse 
de  Merret,  to  request  you  to  discontinue 
your  visits.  Just  one  moment !  I  am 
no  Turk ;  I  do  not  wish  to  make  a  crime 
of  it ;  besides,  you  may  very  well  be  igno- 
rant of  the  circumstances  which  oblige 
me  to  allow  the  finest  mansion  in  Ven- 
dome  to  fall  into  ruins.  However,  mon- 
sieur, you  appear  to  be  a  man  of  education, 
and  you  ought  to  know  that  the  laws  for- 
bid trespass  on  an  inclosed  estate  under 
heavy  penalties.  A  hedge  is  as  good  as 
a  wall.  However,  the  state  in  which  the 
house  now  stands  may  serve  as  an  excuse 
for  your  curiosity.  Nothing  would  give 
me  more  pleasure  than  to  leave  you  free  to 
come  and  go  as  you  please  in  the  house  ; 
but,  charged  as  I  am  to  carry  out  the 
wishes  of  the  testatrix,  I  have  the  honor, 
monsieur,  to  request  you  not  to  enter  that 
garden  again.  Monsieur,  smce  the  open- 
ing of  the  will  I  have  not  myself  set  foot 
in  that  house,  though  it  belongs — as  I 
had  the  honor  of  informing  you — to  the 
estate  of  Madame  de  Merret.  All  we  did 
was  to  make  an  inventory  of  the  doors 
and  windows,  in  order  to  assess  the  taxes, 
which  I  pay  annually  out  of  capital  des- 
tined by  the  late  Madame  la  Comtesse  for 
that  purpose.  Ah,  my  dear  monsieur,  her 
will  made  a  great  talk  in  Vendome  !  " 

Here  the  worthy  man  stopped  to  blow 
his  nose.  I  respected  his  loquacity,  under- 
standing perfectly  that  the  estate  of  Ma- 
dame de  Merret  was  the  most  important 
event  in  his  life — his  whole  reputation,  his 
glory,  his  restoration.  Then,  after  all,  I 
must  saj'  good-bj'  to  my  fine  reveries  and 
romances.  However,  I  did  not  rebel 
against  the  satisfaction  of  learning  the 
truth  in  an  official  manner. 

"Monsieur,"'  I  said,  "  would  it  be  indis- 
creet if  I  asked  you  the  reason  for  this 
eccentricity?  " 


At  these  words  a  look  expressing  all  the 
pleasure  of  a  man  accustomed  to  mount- 
ing his  hobby,  passed  over  the  notary's 
face.  He  pulled  up  his  shirt  collar  with 
a  sort  of  self-satisfied  air,  took  out  his 
snuff-box,  opened  it,  offered  me  some 
snuff,  and  on  m^'  refusal  seized  a  large 
pinch  himself.     He  was  happy  I 

The  man  who  has  not  got  a  hobby 
knows  nothing  of  the  profit  one  can  get 
out  of  life.  A  hobby  is  the  exact  mean 
between  passion  and  monomania. 

At  this  moment  I  understood  that 
charming  expression  of  Sterne's  in  all 
its  meaning.  I  had  a  complete  idea  of 
the  joy  with  which,  by  the  aid  of  Trim, 
Uncle  Toby  bestrode  his  charger. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Monsieur  Kegnault, 
"  I  was  formerly  senior  clerk  to  Maitre 
Roguin,  in  Paris  —  an  excellent  oflice. 
Perhaps  you  have  heard  speak  of  it  ? 
No !  Well,  a  most  unfortunate  bank- 
ruptcy- rendered  it  notorious.  Not  hav- 
ing sufficient  capital  to  carry  on  business 
in  Paris,  considering  the  price  to  which 
practices  went  up  in  1816,  I  came  here 
and  pui'chased  the  office  of  my  predeces- 
sor. I  had  relations  here  in  Vendome, 
among  others  a  very  rich  aunt  who  gave 
me  her  daughter  in  marriage.  Monsieur," 
he  continued  after  a  slight  pause,  "  three 
months  after  I  had  been  enrolled  before 
Monseigneur  le  Oarde  des  sceaux,  I  was 
summoned  one  night  just  as  I  was  going 
to  bed  (this  was  before  my  marriage)  by 
Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Merret  to  her 
clidteau,  le  Chateau  de  Merret.  Her 
lady's-maid,  a  fine  young  woman,  now 
servant  in  this  hotel,  was  at  my  door  in 
Madame  la  Comtesse's  caZec/ie.  Ah  !  just 
on3  moment !  I  ought  to  have  told  you, 
monsieur,  that  Monsieur  le  Conite  de 
Merret  had  gone  to  Paris,  and  died  there 
two  months  before  I  came  here.  He  died 
miserably.  The  day  of  his  departure  Ma- 
dame la  Comtesse  had  left  La  Grande 
Breteche  and  had  it  dismantled.  Some 
people  even  declare  that  she  burned  all 
the  furniture,  hangings — in  short  all  the 
goods  and  chattels  generally  ivhatsoever 
adorning  the  premises  now  in  the  ten- 
ancy of  the  said  sieur — (Dear  me,  what 
am  I  saying  ?    Beg  pardon,  I  was  think- 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    LA     GRANDE    BRETECHE. 


229 


ing  I  was  drawing-  up  a  lease.)  Yes,"  he 
repeated,  "  they  say  she  had  them  burned 
in  the  meadow  at  Merret.  Have  3'ou  been 
to  Merret,  monsieur  ?  No,"  said  he,  an- 
swering the  question  himself.  "Ah!  it's 
a  very  fine  place  !  For  about  three 
months  before,  Monsieur  le  Comte  and 
Madame  la  Comtesse  had  been  living  in 
a  strange  manner.  They  no  longer  re- 
ceived any  one  ;  madame  lived  on  the 
ground-floor  and  monsieur  on  the  first 
stor3^  After  Madame  la  Comtesse  was 
left  alone  she  never  showed  herself  again, 
except  at  church  ;  later  she  refused  to  see 
her  friends  who  came  to  visit  her  at  home 
in  her  chdteau.  She  was  already  very 
much  changed  when  she  left  La  Grande 
Breteche  and  went  to  live  at  Merret. 
The  dear  woman  (I  say  '  dear '  because 
this  diamond  comes  to  me  from  her, 
otherwise  I  never  saw  her  but  once). 
Well,  the  good  lady  was  very  ill.  No 
doubt  she  had  given  up  all  hope  of  re- 
covery, for  she  died  without  wishing  anj' 
doctors  to  be  called  in ;  indeed,  many  of 
our  ladies  here  thought  that  she  was  not 
quite  right  in  the  head.  As  you  may  im- 
agine then,  monsieur,  my  curiosity  was 
especially  excited  when  I  was  informed 
that  Madame  de  Merret  needed  my  as- 
sistance— and  I  was  not  the  only  person 
who  took  interest  in  this  story. 

"Although  it  was  late,  the  whole  town 
knew  that  same  evening  that  I  had  gone 
to  Merr-et.  On  the  road  I  addressed  a 
few  questions  to  the  lad^^'s-maid,  but  her 
answers  were  very  vague  ;  however,  she 
told  me  that  the  cure  of  Merret  had  come 
during  the  day  and  administered  the 
Last  Sacraments  to  her  mistress,  and 
that  it  seemed  impossible  that  she  could 
live  through  the  night.  I  arrived  at  the 
chateau  about  eleven  o'clock.  I  went  up 
the  great  staircase,  then,  after  traversing 
vast,  gloomj^  apartments,  cold  and  damp 
enough  for  the  devil,  I  reached  the  prin- 
cipal bed-chamber,  where  Madame  la 
Comtesse  lay.  After  all  the  reports 
that  had  been  going  about  (I  should 
never  have  finished,  monsieur,  if  I  were 
to  repeat  all  the  stories  that  are  told 
about  her),  I  expected  to  see  a  sort  of 
coquette.    Just  fancy,  I  had  the  greatest 


difficulty  to  discover  at  all  where  she  was, 
in  the  great  bed  in  which  she  lay.  True, 
she  had  one  of  those  antique  Argant 
lamps  for  Ught,  but  the  chamber  was 
enormous,  with  an  ancten  regime  frise 
so  covered  with  dust  that  the  very  sight 
of  it  made  one  cough.  Ah !  but  you've 
not  been  to  Merret  I  Well !  monsieur, 
the  bed  is  one  of  those  old-fashioned 
ones,  with  a  high  canopy  trimmed  with 
figured  chintz.  A  small  night  table  stood 
by  the  bedside,  and  I  noticed  on  it  a  '  Fol- 
lowing of  Christ,'  which,  by  the  way,  I 
afterward  bought  for  my  wife,  as  well  as 
the  lamp ;  there  was  also  a  large  couch 
for  her  confidential  servant,  and  two 
chairs.  No  fire,  mind  !  This  was  all  the 
furniture;  it  wouldn't  have  filled  ten 
lines  of  an  inventory.  Ah,  mon  cher 
monsieur,  if  you  had  seen,  as  I  did  then, 
this  vast  room,  hung  with  brown,  you 
would  have  fancied  you  had  been  trans- 
ported into  a  scene  of  a  romance  come 
true.  It  was  icy,  more  than  icy — fune- 
real," he  added,  raising  his  arm  with  a 
theatrical  gesture  and  pausing.  "After 
looking  for  some  time  and  going  close  up 
to  the  bed,  at  last  I  discovered  Madame 
de  Merret,  thanks  again  to  the  lamplight 
which  fell  full  upon  her  pillows.  Her 
face  was  as  yellow  as  wax ;  it  was  just 
like  a  pair  of  clasped  hands.  She  had  on 
a  lace  cap  which  showed  her  beautiful 
hair;  then,  it  was  as  white  as  thread. 
She  was  sitting  up,  though  she  seemed 
to  do  so  with  great  difficulty.  Her  great 
black  eyes,  dulled  with  fever  no  doubt, 
and  already  almost  dead,  scarcely  moved 
under  the  bones  where  the  eyebrows  are 
— here  !  "  said  he,  pointing  to  the  arch  of 
his  eyes.  "  Her  brow  was  wet,  her  hands 
were  fleshless,  mere  bones  covered  with 
a  fuie,  tender  skin ;  all  her  veins  and 
muscles  stood  out  prominentlj'.  She 
must  have  been  very  beautiful  once, 
but  at  the  moment  I  was  seized  with  a 
feeling — I  don't  laiow  how — at  the  sight 
of  her.  The  people  who  laid  her  out  said 
that  they  had  never  seen  a  creature  so 
utterly  fleshless  alive.  She  really  was 
terrible  to  behold  !  Disease  had  made 
such  ravages  upon  her  she  was  nothing 
more  than  a  phantom.    Her  lips  were  a 


230 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


livid  purple ;  they  seemed  motionless 
even  when  she  spoke.  Although  iny 
profession  takes  mo  now  and  again  to 
the  bedsides  of  the  dying-  in  order  to  as- 
certain their  last  wishes,  so  that  I  am 
not  unfamiliar  with  these  scenes,  yet  I 
must  say  that  the  lamentations  of  the 
■families  and  the  agonies  of  the  dying- 
which  I  have  witnessed  are  as  nothing- 
compared  to  this  desolate  and  silent  wo- 
man in  her  vast  chateau.  I  could  not 
hear  the  faintest  sound,  I  could  not  even 
see  the  least  movement  of  the  bed-clothes 
from  the  breathing  of  the  sick  woman  ; 
I  too  stood  perfectly  motionless,  absorbed 
in  looking  at  her,  in  a  sort  of  stupor.  I 
could  iviwcy  I  was  there  now.  At  last 
her  great  Gyes  moved ;  she  tried  to  lift 
lier  rig-ht  hand,  but  it  fell  back  on  the 
bed,  and  these  words  passed  out  of  her 
mouth  like  a  sig-h — her  voice  was  a  voice 
no  more — '  I  have  waited  very  impatiently 
for  you.'  Her  cheeks  flushed  feverishly. 
It  was  a  struggle  for  her  to  speak.  '  Ma- 
dame,' 1  said.  She  made  me  a  sig-n  to  be  si- 
lent, and  at  the  same  moment  the  old  house- 
keeper rose  from  her  couch  and  whispered 
ui  my  ear :  '  Do  not  speak ;  Madame  la 
Comtesse  is  not  in  a  state  to  bear  the  least 
sound;  if  you  spoke  you  might  agitate 
her.'  I  sat  down.  After  a  few  moments 
Madame  de  Merret  gathered  up  all  her 
i-emaining  strength  and  moved  her  right 
arm ;  she  put  it  with  immense  difficulty 
under  her  bolster ;  then  she  paused  for  a 
moment ;  then  she  made  one  last  effort 
to  draw  out  her  hand  ;  she  took  out  a 
sealed  paper,  and  as  she  did  so  the  sweat 
fell  in  drops  from  her  forehead.  'I  in- 
trust my  will  to  you,'  she  said.  'All,  my 
God,  ah ! '  This  was  all.  She  seized  a 
crucifix  which  lay  on  her  bed,  raised  it 
quickly  to  her  lips,  and  died.  The  ex- 
pression of  those  motionless  eyes  makes 
me  shudder  still ;  she  must  have  suffered 
terribly  !  There  was  joy  in  her  last  look, 
and  the  joy  remained  graven  upon  her 
dead  eyes.  I  took  away  the  will  with 
me ;  when  it  was  opened  I  found  that 
Madame  de  Merret  had  named  me  her 
executor.  She  bequeathed  the  whole  of 
her  property  to  the  hospital  at  Vendome, 
with  the  exception  of  a   few  indi^idual 


leg-acies.  Her  directions  relatively  to 
La  Grande  Breteche  were  as  follows : — 
She  directed  me  to  leave  the  house  for  a 
period  of  fifty  years — reckoned  from  the 
day  of  her  death — in  the  exact  state  in 
which  it  should  be  found  at  the  moment 
of  her  decease ;  she  forbade  any  entry  into 
the  apartments  by  any  person  whatso- 
ever, and  also  the  least  repair  ;  she  even 
set  aside  the  interest  of  a  certain  sum 
wherewith,  if  necessary,  to  engag-e  keep- 
ers, in  order  to  insure  the  fulfillment  of 
her  intentions  in  their  entirety.  At  the 
expiration  of  this  term  of  years,  if  the 
wishes  of  the  testatrix  have  been  carried 
out,  the  house  is  to  pass  to  my  heirs,  for 
monsieur  is  aware  that  notaries  are  not 
allowed  to  accept  a  legacy;  if  they  are 
not  carried  out.  La  Grande  Breteche  re- 
turns to  the  heirs-at-law,  with  the  charge 
that  they  are  to  fulfill  the  conditions  indi- 
cated in  the  codicil  annexed  to  the  will, 
which  codicil  is  not  to  be  opened  until 
the  expiration  of  the  said  fifty  j^ears. 
The  will  ihas  never  been  disputed,  and 
so — ;  "  at  this  word,  and  without  finish- 
ing his  sentence,  that  oblong-  notary  sur- 
veyed me  with  an  air  of  triumjih,  and  I 
made  him  quite  happy  by  addressing-  him 
a  few  compliments. 

"Monsieur,"  I  finished  by  saying-  to 
him,  "you  have  made  such  a  vivid  im- 
pression upon  me  that  I  fancy  I  can  see 
this  dying  woman  paler  than  her  own 
sheets ;  her  gleaming  eyes  make  me 
afraid  ;  I  shall  dream  of  her  to-nig-ht. 
But  you  will  have  formed  some  conject- 
ures concerning  the  dispositions  contained 
in  this  eccentric  will  ?  " 

"Monsieur,"  said  he,  with  comic  re- 
serve, "  I  never  allow  myself  to  judge  of 
the  conduct  of  persons  who  have  honored 
me  with  the  gift  of  a  diamond." 

I  soon  untied  the  tongue  of  the  scrupu- 
lous notary,  and  he  communicated  to  me, 
amid  long  digressions,  all  the  observa- 
tions made  by  the  profound  politicians  of 
both  sexes  .whose  judgments  are  law  in 
Vendome.  But  these  observations  were 
so  contradictor^^  and  so  diffuse,  that,  in 
spite  of  the  interest  which  I  took  in  this 
authentic  history,  I  very  nearly  fell 
asleep.    The  notary,  no  doubt  accustomed 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    LA     GRANDE    BRETECHE. 


231 


to  listen  himself,  and  to  make  his  clients 
and  fellow-townsmen  listen  too,  to  his 
dull  voice  and  monotonous  intonation, 
began  to  triumph  over  ray  curiositj',  when 
happily  he  got  up  to  leave. 

"Ha,  ha,  monsieur,"  said  he,  upon  the 
staircase,  "there  are  many  people  who 
would  like  to  be  alive  in  forty -five  years' 
time,  but — just  one  moment !  "  and  he 
put  the  first  finger  of  his  right  hand  to 
his  nose,  as  if  to  say,  "Pay  great  atten- 
tion to  this,"  and  said  in  a  slj'^  way,  "  To 
get  as  far  as  that,  one  must  start  before 
sixty." 

I  was  drawn  from  my  apathy  \)y  the 
last  sally — the  notarj'  thought  it  prodig- 
iously witty  ;  then  I  shut  my  door,  sat 
down  in  my  armchair,  and  put  my  feet 
on  the  flLre-dogs  of  the  grate. 

I  was  soon  deep  in  a  romance  a  la  Anne 
Radcliffe,  founded  on  the  juridical  hints 
given  by  Monsieur  Regnault.  Presently 
my  door,  handled  bj'  the  dexterous  hand 
of  a  woman,  turned  on  its  hinges;  my 
hostess  came  in,  a  good-humored,  jovial 
woman,  who  had  missed  her  vocation ; 
she  was  a  Fleming,  and  ought  to  have 
been  born  in  a  picture  by  Teniers. 

"Well,  monsieur,"  said  she,  "I  suppose 
Monsieur  Regnault  has  been  droning  over 
his  old  story  again  about  La  Grande 
Breteche?" 

"Yes,  he  has,  mere  Lepas." 

"  What  has  he  been  telling  you  ?  " 

I  repeated  to  her  in  a  few  words  the 
gloomy,  chilling  story  of  Madame  de 
Merret.  After  each  sentence  my  hostess 
stretched  out  her  neck  and  looked  at  me 
with  an  innkeeper's  own  shrewdness — a 
sort  of  happy  mean  between  the  instinct 
of  a  gendarme,  the  craft  of  a  spy,  and  the 
shiftiness  of  a  shopkeeper.  When  I  had 
finished  I  added, 

"My  dear  dame  Lepas!  you  seem  to 
me  to  know  something  more  about  it 
yourself,  or  else  why  should  you  have 
come  up  to  see  me?" 

"  No,  on  my  word  of  honor  I  as  sure  as 
my  name's  Lepas." 

"  No,  don't  swear  to  it ;  your  eyes  are 
big  with  a  secret.  You  knew  Monsieur 
Merret;  what  was  he  like?" 

"Lord  bless  you.  Monsieur  de  Merret  was 


a  fine  man  ;  you  never  got  to  the  end  of 
him,  he  was  so  long — a  worthy  gentleman 
come  from  Picardie,  but,  as  we  say  here, 
'  II  avait  la  tete  pres  du  bonet.'  He 
paid  everything  ready  monej-,  so  that  he 
might  never  come  to  words  with  any  one; 
you  see  he  was  a  bit  quick  !  Our  ladies 
here  all  thouglit  him  very  pleasant." 

"Because  he  was  clever?"  said  I. 

"Likelj'  enough,"  said  she. 

"You  may  imagine,  monsieur,  there 
must  have  been  a  something  about  him, 
as  they  say,  for  Madame  de  Merret  to 
have  married  him.  I  don't  want  to  hurt 
the  other  ladies,  but  she  was  the  richest 
and  prettiest  young  ladj'  in  all  Vcndome; 
she  had  near  on  twenty  thousand  livres 
a  3'ear.  The  whole  town  went  to  see  the 
wedding.  The  bride  was  a  delicate,  win- 
ning creature — a  real  jewel  of  a  wife. 
All !  they  made  a  fine  couple  in  their 
time  !  " 

"Were  they  happy  together?  " 

"  Hm  !  perhaps  they  were  and  perhaps 
they  weren't,  as  far  as  one  could  tell;  but 
you  can  imagine  they  didn't  hob-nob  with 
such  as  we.  Madame  de  Merret  made  a 
good  wife,  and  very  kind.  I  dare  say  she 
had  a  good  bit  to  put  up  -with  at  times 
from  her  husband's  tantrums  ;  but  though 
he  was  a  bit  stern,  we  liked  him  well 
enough.  Bah  !  it's  his  quality  that  made 
him  like  that ;  when  a  man's  noble,  j-ou 
know — " 

"  Then  there  must  certainly-  have  been 
some  catastrophe  for  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame de  Merret  to  have  separated  so  ab- 
ruptly ?  " 

"  I  never  said  anj'thing  about  a  catas- 
trophe, monsieur.  I  don't  know  anj'thing 
about  it." 

"  All  right !  Now  I  am  certain  that 
you  do  know  about  it." 

"  Well,  monsieur,  I  am  going  to  tell 
you  all  I  know.  When  I  saw  Monsieur 
Regnault  go  up  to  sec  you,  I  felt  certain 
that  he  would  talk  to  ^'ou  about  Madame 
de  Merret,  with  reference  to  La  Gi-ande 
Breteche.  This  put  it  into  my  head  to 
consult  monsieur,  for  you  seemed  to  me 
to  be  a  comfortable  man,  who  would  not 
betray  a  poor  woman  like  me  that  has 
never  done  harm  to  any  one  —  and  yet 


232 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


find  myself  tormented  by  my  conscience. 
I  have  never  up  to  now  dared  to  open  my 
mouth  about  it  to  the  people  in  this  place; 
tlioy"re  all  a  pack  of  g-ossips,  with  tong-ucs 
like  vineg-ar.  In  fact,  monsieur,  I  have 
never  yet  had  a  traveler  stay  in  my  house 
as  long  as  you  have,  or  any  one  to  whom 
I  could  tell  the  history  of  the  fifty  thou- 
sand francs — " 

"My  dear  dame  Lepas,"  I  answered, 
checking-  the  flow  of  her  words,  "if  your 
confidence  is  of  a  nature  to  compromise 
me  I  wouldn't  be  burdened  with  it  for 
all  the  world." 

'•You  needn't  be  afraid,"  said  she,  in- 
terrupting me,  "you  will  see." 

This  readiness  made  me  think  that  I 
was  not  the  only  person  to  whom  our 
good  hostess  had  communicated  the 
secret  of  which  I  was  to  be  the  sole  de- 
pository ;  however,  I  settled  myself  to 
listen. 

"Monsieur,"  said  she,  "when  the  em- 
peror sent  some  Spanish  prisoners  here — 
prisoners  of  war  or  others — I  had  one 
to  lodge  at  the  expense  of  the  govern- 
ment, a  young  Spaniard  sent  to  Vendome 
on  parole.  In  spite  of  his  parole,  he  had 
to  go  eveiy  day  to  report  himself  to  the 
sub-prefect.  He  was  a  Spanish  grandee 
— excuse  me  a  minute — he  bore  a  name 
ending  in  '  os '  and  '  dia.'  I  think  it  was 
Bagos  de  Feredia,  but  I  wrote  it  down  in 
my  register ;  if  you  would  like  to,  j'ou  can 
read  it.  Ah  !  he  was  a  handsome  young 
man  for  a  Spaniard,  who  are  all  uglj^— so 
they  saj'.  He  couldn't  have  been  more 
than  five  feet  two  or  three  inches,  but  he 
was  well  made.  He  had  the  smallest 
hands  ! — which  he  took  such  cai'e  of — you 
should  have  seen — he  had  as  many  brushes 
for  his  hands  as  a  woman  has  for  the 
whole  of  her  toilet.  He  had  long  black 
hair,  gleaming  eyes,  rather  an  olive  com- 
plexion— but  I  admired  that.  He  wore 
the  finest  linen  I  ever  saw  on  any  one — 
and  I  have  had  princesses  to  lodge  here, 
and  among  others  le  General  Bertrand, 
le  Due  and  la  Duchesse  d'Albrantes,  Mon- 
sieur Decazes,  and  the  king  of  Spain.  He 
did  not  eat  much;  but  one  couldn't  be 
angry  with  him,  he  had  such  gentle  cour- 
teous manners.     Oh  !  I  was  very  fond  of 


him,  although  he  didn't  say  two  words  in 
the  day ;  and  one  couldn't  get  the  least 
conversation  with  him.  If  one  tried  to 
talk  to  him,  he  didn't  answer.  It  was  a 
fad — a  mania  ;  they're  all  like  it,  so  I'm 
told.  He  read  his  breviary  like  a  priest ; 
he  went  regularly  to  mass  and  to  all  the 
offices;  and  where  doj'ou  think  he  knelt  ? 
— (we  noticed  this  afterward) — why,  not 
two  steps  from  Madame  de  Merret's 
chapel.  As  he  took  his  seat  there  ever 
since  the  first  time  he  went  into  the  church, 
no  one  imagined  there  could  be  anything 
in  it ;  besides,  the  poor  young  man  never 
raised  his  nose  out  of  his  book  of  prayers. 
Then,  monsieur,  in  the  evening  he  used  to 
walk  on  the  hill  in  the  ruins  of  the  castle. 
It  was  his  only  amusement,  poor  man ;  it 
must  have  reminded  him  of  his  own  coun- 
try— Spain  is  nothing  but  mountains,  so 
I've  heard.  From  the  fii*st  days  of  his 
detention  he  was  alwaj-s  late  at  night.  I 
was  anxious,  when  I  saw  he  didn't  come 
in  until  just  on  the  stroke  of  midnight; 
but  we  all  got  accustomed  to  his  fancies. 
He  took  the  kej'  of  the  door,  and  we  didn't 
sit  up  for  him  any  longer.  He  lodged  in 
the  house  we  have  in  la  rue  des  Casernes. 
Then  one  of  our  stable-boys  told  us  that 
one  evening  when  he  was  going  to  wash 
the  horses,  he  believed  he  had  seen  the 
Spanish  grandee  swimming  like  a  fish 
some  distance  off  in  the  river.  When  he 
came  back  I  Avarned  him  to  mind  the 
weeds.  He  seemed  annoyed  at  having 
been  seen  in  the  water.  At  last,  monsieur, 
one  da}',  or  rather  one  morning,  we  found 
he  was  not  in  his  bedroom  ;  he  had  not 
returned.  After  hunting  about  every- 
where, I  saw  some  writing  in  the  drawer 
of  his  table,  and  with  it  fifty  of  the  Span- 
ish gold  pieces  they  call  portugals,  equal 
to  about  fifty  thousand  francs  ;  and  after- 
ward in  a  little  sealed  box  some  diamonds, 
worth  about  ten  thousand  francs.  Well, 
this  writing  said  that  in  case  he  did  not 
come  back  he  left  us  the  money  and  the 
diamonds,  and  charged  us  to  have  masses 
said  to  thank  God  for  his  escape  and  his 
safety.  At  that  time  I  still  had  my  hus- 
band with  me,  and  he  ran  out  to  search 
for  him.  Now  comes  the  oddest  part  of 
the  story.     He  brought  back  the  Span- 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    LA     GRANDE    BRETECHE. 


233 


iard's  clothes,  which  he  had  found  under 
a  larg-e  stone  in  a  sort  of  palisade  on  the 
bank  of  the  river,  on  the  chateau  side, 
almost  opposite  La  Grande  Breteche. 
My  husband  had  got  there  so  early  that 
no  one  had  seen  them.  When  he  had 
read  the  letter,  he  burned  the  clothes, 
and  we  gave  out  according'  to  Count 
Feredia's  desire  that  he  had  escaped. 
The  sub-prefect  set  the  whole  gendar- 
merie at  his  heels  ;  but,  pooh  !  they 
never  caught  him.  Lepas  believed  the 
Spaniard  was  drowned ;  but  I  don't,  mon- 
sieur. I  believe  he  had  something  to  do 
with  that  affair  of  Madame  de  Merret, 
seeing  that  Eosalie  told  me  that  the  cru- 
cifix which  her  mistress  was  so  fond  of 
that  she  had  it  buried  %\ith  her  was  made 
of  ebony  and  silver.  Now  during  the  first 
days  of  Monsieur  Feredia's  stay  here  he 
had  a  crucifix  of  ebony  and  silver,  which 
I  never  saw  among  his  things  again. 
Now,  monsieur,  you  don't  really  think 
I  need  have  any  remorse  about  the  fif- 
ty thousand  francs  ?  They  really  are 
mine?" 

"  Certainly. — Then  you've  never  tried 
to  question  Rosalie,"  I  said. 

"  Haven't  I  though,  monsieur ;  but 
what  am  I  to  do  ?  That  girl !  she's — a 
wall.  She  laiows  something-,  but  there's 
no  getting  anything  out  of  her." 

After  tallcing  to  me  for  a  few  minutes 
more  my  hostess  left  me,  tortured  bj' 
vague  and  gloomy  thoughts.  I  felt  a  ro- 
mantic curiosity,  and  yet  a  sort  of  relig- 
ious horror,  like  the  profound  sensation 
which  takes  hold  of  us  when  we  go  into  a 
church  at  night.  Under  the  lofty  arches 
we  perceive  through  the  gloom  a  far-off 
flickering  light,  an  uncertain  form  glides 
by  us,  we  hear  the  rustle  of  a  gown  or  a 
cassock — ^before  we  know  it,  we  have  sliud- 
dered.  La  Grande  Breteche,  with  its  rank 
weeds,  its  wornout  casements,  its  rusted 
ironwork,  its  deserted  chambei's,  its  closed 
portals,  rose  up  suddenly,  fantastically  be- 
fore me.  I  would  try  to  penetrate  into 
this  mysterious  dwelling,  by  seeking  for 
the  knot  of  its  solemn  historj',  the  drama 
that  had  slain  three  human  beings. 

Rosalie  was  now  the  most  interesting 
person  to  me  in  Vendome.    In  spite  of 


the  glow  of  health  which  beamed  from 
her  chubby  face,  I  discovered,  after  clcsc 
scrutiny,  the  trace  of  hidden  thoughts. 
She  held  withm  her  the  elements  either 
of  hope  or  remorse;  her  behavior  sug- 
gested a  secret,  like  those  pious  women 
who  pray  to  excess,  or  a  girl  who  has 
killed  her  child  and  is  always  hearmg  its 
last  cr>^  Yet  her  attitudes  were  simple 
and  awkward.  There  was  nothing  crim- 
inal in  her  broad  foolish  smile,  if  only  ab 
the  sight  of  her  sturdy  bust,  covered  with 
a  red  and  blue  check  kerchief,  and  in- 
closed, impressed,  and  inlaced  in  a  violet 
and  white  striped  gown,  you  coufd  not 
have  failed  to  think  she  was  innocent. 

"No,"  thought  I,  "I  shaU  not  leave 
Vendome  until  I  know  the  whole  history 
of  La  Grande  Breteche.  I  will  woo  Ros- 
alie, if  it  be  absolutely  necessary,  to  gain 
my  end." 

•'  Rosalie,"  said  I  one  day. 

"Yes  I  if  you  please,  monsieur." 

"  You  are  not  married  ? "  She  gave  a 
little  start. 

"Oh,  I  shan't  want  for  a  husband,  1 
can  tell  you,  monsieur,  when  the  whim 
takes  me  to  make  a  fool  of  myself,"  said 
she,  laughing. 

She  quickly  recovered  from  her  inward 
emotion,  for  every  woman,  from  a  fine 
lady  to  a  tavern  drudge  inclusively,  has 
a  sangfroid  especialh'  their  own. 

"You  are  fresh  and  attractive  enough 
not  to  lack  lovers  !  But  tell  me,  Rosalie, 
how  was  it  j'ou  took  a  place  at  an  inn 
after  you  had  been  with  Madame  de  Mer- 
ret ?    Didn't  she  leave  you  any  pension  ?" 

"  Oh  yes,  monsieur ;  but  my  place  is 
the  best  in  all  Vendome." 

This  was  one  of  those  answers  that 
judges  and  bai'risters  call  dilatory.  It 
appeared  to  me,  with  regard  to  this  ro- 
mantic story,  that  Rosalie  stood  on  the 
middle  square  of  the  chessboard  ;  she  was 
at  the  very  center  both  of  the  interest  and 
of  the  ti'uth  of  it ;  she  seemed  to  be  bound 
up  in  the  knot.  It  was  no  ordinary  inqui- 
sition I  was  attempting ;  this  girl  was  like 
the  last  chapter  of  a  romance.  So  from 
this  moment  Rosalie  became  the  object  of 
my  predilections.  By  dint  of  studying 
her,  I  noticed  in  her — as  one  does  in  all 


234 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  women  whom  we  make  our  chief 
thoiigrht  —  a  number  of  good  qualities. 
She  w:is  neat,  dili.gent,  pretty — of  course 
t  liat  g-oes  without  saj'ing  ;— in  fact,  she 
was  soon  endowed  with  all  the  attrac- 
tions which  our  desire  attributes  to  wo- 
men, in  whatever  situation  they  may  be 
placed.  A  fortnight  after  the  notary's 
visit,  one  morning,  I  said  to  Rosalie  : 

"Come,  tell  me  all  you  know  about 
Madame  de  Merret !  " 

"  Oh,  don't  ask  me  that.  Monsieur 
Horace,"  she  answered  with  terror. 
Her  pretty  face  grew  dark,  her  bright 
vivid  Coloring  faded,  and  her  eyes  lost 
all  their  soft  and  innocent  luster. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "as  you  wish  it,  I 
will  tell  you ;  but  whatever  you  do,  keep 
the  secret !  " 

"  Done !  my  child  ;  I  will  keep  all  thy 
s(!crets  with  the  integrity  of  a  robber, 
which  is  the  loyalest  that  exists." 

"  If  you  don't  mind,"  said  she,  "  I  had 
rather  j'ou  kept  them  with  your  own." 
So  she  arranged  her  kerchief,  and  settled 
herself  as  one  does  to  tell  a  tale,  for 
certainly  an  attitude  of  confidence  and 
security  is  a  necessity  in  story-telling. 

The  best  stories  are  told  at  a  not  too 
early  hour,  and  just  as  we  are  now,  at 
table.  No  one  ever  told  a  story  well, 
standing  or  fasting.  But  if  it  were  nec- 
essary to  reproduce  faithfully  the  diffuse 
eloquence  of  Rosalie,  a  whole  volume 
would  scarcely  be  enough.  Now,  since 
the  event  thus  confusedly  related  to  me 
bears  exactly  the  same  relation  to  the 
notary's  and  Madame  Lepas's  gossip  as 
the  mean  terms  in  arithmetical  propor- 
tion bear  to  the  extreme,  I  have  nothing 
more  to  do  than  to  tell  it  again  in  a  few 
words ;  so  I  abridge. 

The  bedroom  which  Madame  de  Merret 
occupied  at  La  Breteche  was  situated  on 
the  ground  floor.  In  it,  sunk  in  the  wall, 
about  four  feet  deep,  was  a  small  closet 
which  she  used  for  a  wardrobe.  Three 
months  before  the  evening  when  the  cii"- 
curastances  took  place  which  I  am  about 
to  relate  to  you,  Madame  de  Merret  was 
so  seriously  indisposed  that  her  husband 
left  her  to  sleep  alone  in  her  room,  and 
went  himself  to  sleep  In  a  room  on  the 


first  floor.  On  this  evening,  by  one  of 
those  chances  impossible  to  foresee,  he 
came  home  from  his  club  (where  he  went 
to  read  the  papers  and  talk  politics  with 
the  country  gentlemen)  two  hours  later 
than  he  was  accustomed  to.  His  wife 
thought  that  he  had  already  come  in  and 
gone  to  bed,  and  was  asleep.  But  there 
had  been  a  rather  animated  discussion  on 
the  subject  of  the  invasion  of  France  ;  the 
game  of  billiards  too  had  proved  an  excit- 
ing one,  and  he  had  lost  forty  francs. 
This  was  an  enormous  sum  at  Veiidome 
where  every  one  hoards  and  morals  are 
kept  within  bounds  of  most  praiseworthy 
moderation ;  j^erhaps  this  is  the  source 
of  that  true  contentment  which  Parisians 
do  not  appreciate.  For  some  time  Mon- 
sieur de  Merret  had  contented  himself 
with  inquiring  from  Rosalie  whether  his 
wife  had  gone  to  bed,  and  on  her  always 
answering  in  the  afflrmative,  he  went 
straight  to  his  own  room  with  that  sim- 
plicit3'  which  comes  of  habit  and  confi- 
dence. But  that  night,  when  he  came  in, 
the  fancy  took  him  to  go  and  tell  his  ill- 
luck  to  Madame  de  Merret,  and  also  per- 
haps receive  her  sympathy.  Now  during 
dinner  he  had  observed  that  Madame 
de  Merret  was  very  becomingly  dressed  ; 
and  he  remarked  to  himself  as  he  came 
from  his  club  that  his  wife's  indisposi- 
tion must  have  passed  off,  and  that  her 
convalescence  had  made  her  more  beauti- 
ful than  before.  You  see  he  noticed  this, 
as  husbands  do  everything,  a  little  late 
in  the  day.  At  this  moment  Rosalie  was 
in  the  kitchen,  engaged  in  watching  the 
cook  and  the  coachman  play  out  a  difhcult 
hand  at  hrisque;  so  instead  of  calling  her, 
Monsieur  de  Merret  placed  his  lantern  on 
the  bottom  step  of  the  stairs,  and  by  its 
light  directed  his  steps  toward  his  wife's 
bedroom.  His  footsteps  were  easy  to  recog- 
nize as  they  rang  in  the  vaulted  corridor. 
At  the  moment  he  turned  the  handle  of 
his  wife's  door,  he  thought  he  heard  the 
door  of  the  closet  I  have  mentioned  shut ; 
but  when  he  came  in  Madame  de  Merret 
was  alone,  standing  before  the  fireplace. 
Her  husband  in  his  simplicitj^  thought  to 
himself  that  it  was  Rosalie  in  the  ward- 
I  robe,  but  yet  a  suspicion  jangled  like  a 


THE    MYSTERY    OF    LA     GRANDE    BRETECHE. 


235 


chime  in  his  ears,  and  made  him  distrust- 
ful. He  looked  at  his  wife  ;  he  saw  in  her 
e^^es  a  sort  of  troubled,  fierce  expression. 
"You  are  late  to-night,"  said  she.  In 
her  voice,  before  so  pure  and  gracious, 
there  seemed  to  him  to  have  come  a  subtle 
change.  He  made  no  reply,  for  at  that 
moment  Rosalie  came  in.  It  was  a  thun- 
derbolt to  him. 

He  paced  up  and  down  the  room,  his 
arms  folded,  going  from  one  window  to 
the  other  with  measured  tread.  "  Have 
you  had  bad  news,  or  are  you  in  pain  ?  " 
she  asked  timidlj^  while  Rosalie  un- 
dressed her.  He  kept  silence.  "You 
can  go,"  said  Madame  de  Merret  to  her 
ladj^'s-raaid ;  "  I  will  put  in  my  curl- 
papers myself."  She  divined  some  evil 
from  the  very  look  on  her  husband's  face, 
and  wished  to  be  alone  with  him.  When 
Rosalie  was  gone — or  ostensibly  gone,  for 
she  waited  for  some  minutes  in  the  conn- 
dor — Monsieur  de  Merret  came  and  sat 
dowTi  beiore  his  wife,  and  said  coldly, 
"Madame,  there  is  some  one  in  your 
wardrobe."  She  looked  calmly  at  her 
husband,  and  said  simply,  "  ISTo,  mon- 
sieur." This  "No"  wounded  Monsieur 
de  Merret  to  the  quick  ;  he  did  not  believe 
it,  and  yet  his  wife  had  never  seemed  to 
him  purer  or  holier  than  she  looked  at 
that  moment.  He  rose  and  went  to  open 
the  closet.  Madame  de  Merret  took  his 
hand  and  stopped  him,  looked  at  him  with 
a  melancholy  air,  and  said  in  a  voice  of 
extreme  emotion,  "  Remember,  if  you  do 
not  find  any  one  there,  all  will  be  over 
between  us  ! "  The  incredible  dignity 
stamped  upon  the  figure  of  his  wife  re- 
stored him  to  a  profound  sense  of  esteem 
for  her,  and  inspired  him  with  one  of  those 
resolves  which  only  need  a  vaster  stage  to 
become  immortal. 

"No,  Josephine,"  said  he,  "  I  will  not 
go.  In  either  case  we  should  be  parted 
forever.  Listen !  I  know  all  the  purity 
of  thy  soul ;  I  know  that  thou  leadest  a 
holy  life,  that  thou  wouldst  not  commit 
a  mortal  sin  to  save  thyself  from  death."' 
At  these  words  Madame  de  Merret  looked 
at  her  husband  with  a  wild  light  in  her 
eyes.  "  Stop,  here  is  thy  crucifix,"  added 
the  man.     ' '  Swear  to  me  before  God  that 


there  is  no  one  there.  I  will  tnist  you — 
I  will  never  open  that  door."  Madame 
de  Merret  took  the  ci-ucifLx  and  said,  "I 
swear."  "Louder,"  said  her  hu.sband  ; 
"and  repeat,  'I  swear  before  God  there 
is  no  one  in  that  wardrobe.' "  She  re- 
peated  the   phrase  unmoved. 

"It  is  well,"  said  Monsieur  de  Merret 
coldly. 

After  a  moment's  silence  :  "  That's  a 
very  fine  thing  you  have,  I  have  not 
noticed  it  before,"  said  he,  examining 
the  crucifix,  which  was  of  ebony  and 
silver,  and  very  finely  car\-ed. 

"  I  picked  it  up  at  Duvivier's ;  he 
bought  it  of  a  Spanish  religieiix  last 
summer,  when  that  troop  ot  Spani.sh 
prisoners  passed  through  Vendome." 

"Oh  !"  said  Monsieur  de  Merret,  and 
hung  up  the  crucifix  upon  the  nail  again  : 
then  he  rang  the  bell.  Rosalie  did  not 
keep  him  waiting.  Monsieur  de  Merret 
went  quickly  to  meet  her,  drew  her  into 
the  embrasure  of  the  wandow  which  looked 
out  on  the  garden,  and  said,  in  a  low 
voice :  "  I  know  that  Gorenflot  wants  to 
marry  you,  tliat  it's  only  your  po^•erty 
which  prevents  your  setting  up  house, 
and  that  you  have  refused  to  marry  him 
if  he  can't  manage  to  make  himself  a 
master  mason — very  well  !  go  and  fetch 
him ;  tell  him  to  come  here  with  his 
trowel  and  his  other  tools.  Manage  so 
as  to  wake  no  one  in  his  house  except 
him,  and  you'll  make  a  much  finer  fort- 
une than  you  ever  even  coveted.  Above 
all,  go  out  of  this  house  without  chatter- 
ing; if  you  do  not — "  and  he  frowned. 
Rosalie  went ;  he  called  her  back.  "  Stop, 
take  my  latch-key,"  said  he. 

"  Jean  !"  thundered  Jlonsieur  de  Mer- 
ret in  the  corridor. 

Jean,  who  served  both  as  coachman 
and  confidential  servant,  left  his  game  of 
hrisque,  and  came. 

"  Go,  all  of  3'ou,  to  bed,"  said  his  mas- 
ter, making  him  a  sign  to  come  up  close 
to  him  :  then  he  added,  in  a  low  voice. 
"  When  they  arc  all  asleep — asleep,  mind 
— come  down  and  tell  me." 

Monsieur  de  Merret,  who  had  not  lost 
sight  of  his  wife  all  tlie  time  he  was  giv- 
ing his  orders,  came  back  quietly  to  her 


236 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


before  the  fire,  and  proceeded  to  relate 
the  events  of  liis  billiard  match  and  their 
discussions  at  the  club.  When  Eosalio 
came  back,  she  found  Monsieur  and 
Madame  de  Merret  talking  amicably  to- 
gether. 

The  count  had  recently  had  ceilings 
made  to  all  the  rooms  on  the  ground  floor, 
which  he  used  for  receptions.  It  was  this 
circumstance  that  had  suggested  to  him 
the  plan  he  proceeded  to  carry  into  exe- 
cution. 

"Monsieur,  Gorenflot  is  here,"  said 
Rosalie  in  a  low  voice. 

"Let  him  come  in,"  said  the  Picard 
aloud. 

Madame  de  Merret  grew  a  little  pale 
when  she  saw  the  mason. 

"Gorenflot,"  said  her  husband,  "go 
and  get  some  bricks  from  under  the  coach- 
house, and  bring  enough  to  wall  up  the 
door  of  that  closet ;  you  can  use  some  of 
the  plaster  I  have  by  me,  for  plastering 
the  wall." 

Then  he  drew  Rosalie  and  the  work- 
man aside,  and  said  to  them,  in  a  low 
voice :  "  Listen,  Gorenflot,  you  will  sleep 
here  to-night,  but  to-morrow  morning 
you  shall  have  a  passport  to  go  abroad 
to  a  town  which  I  will  name.  I  shall  send 
you  six  thousand  francs  for  the  journey. 
You  will  remain  for  ten  years  in  this 
town ;  if  the  place  does  not  please  you, 
yovL  can  settle  in  another,  provided  only 
that  it  is  in  the  same  country.  You  will 
pass  through  Paris,  wait  for  me  there  ; 
there  I  will  settle  on  you,  by  deed,  six 
thousand  francs  more,  which  shall  be 
paid  you  on  your  return,  if  you  have  ful- 
filled the  conditions  of  our  bargain.  For 
this  sum  you  must  keep  the  most  abso- 
lute silence  about  what  you  are  going  to 
do  to-night.  As  to  you,  Rosalie,  I  will 
give  you  ten  thousand  francs,  not  to  be 
Ijaid  over  to  you  until  the  day  of  your 
marriage,  and  then  only  on  condition 
that  you  marry  Gorenflot ;  but  to  marry, 
you  must  be  silent ;  if  not,  you  get  no 
dowry." 

"Rosalie,"  said  Madame  de  Merret, 
"  come  and  do  my  hair." 

Her  husband  paced  quietly  from  one 
end  of  the  room  to  the  other,  watching 


the  door,  the  mason,  and  his  wife,  but 
without  displaying  any  offensive  distrust. 
Gorenflot  could  not  help  making  some 
noise.  While  the  workman  was  unload- 
ing his  bi'icks,  and  her  husband  was  at 
the  end  of  the  room,  Madame  de  Merret 
seized  the  opportunity  of  saying  to  Rosa- 
lie :  "  A  thousand  francs  a  year  for  you, 
my  dear  child,  if  thou  canst  tell  Goren- 
flot to  leave  a  chink  near  the  bottom." 
Then  she  said  aloud,  and  with  perfect 
composure,  "  Go  and  help  him  !  " 

Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Merret  re- 
mained silent  during  the  whole  time  Goren- 
flot took  to  wall  up  the  door.  With  the 
husband,  this  silence  arose  from  calcula- 
tion; he  did  not  wish  to  give  his  wife  a 
chance  of  saying  anjiihing  which  might 
have  a  double  meaning.  With  Madame  de 
Merret,  it  was  prudence  or  pride.  When 
the  wall  had  reached  half  the  necessary 
height,  the  cunning  mason  seized  an  op- 
portunity when  Monsieur  de  Merret's 
back  was  turned,  and  gave  one  of  the 
two  ijanes  of  glass  in  the  door  a  blow 
with  his  pick.  This  made  Madame  de 
Merret  understand  that  Rosalie  had 
spoken  to  Goi-enflot.  Then  they  all  three 
saw  the  sad  dark  face  of  a  man,  with 
black  hair  and  gleaming  eyes.  Before 
her  husband  had  turned  round,  the  poor 
woman  had  time  to  make  a  sign  with  her 
head  to  the  stranger.  Bj^  this  sign  she 
would  have  said  to  him  :  "  Hope  !  " 

At  four  o'clock,  just  before  daylight, 
the  wall  was  finished.  The  mason  re- 
mained in  the  house,  guarded  by  Jean, 
and  Monsieur  de  Merret  went  to  bed  in 
his  wife's  room.  The  next  morning,  while 
he  was  getting  up,  he  said  carelessly : 
"  The  deuce !  I  must  go  to  the  mayor 
and  get  that  passport."  He  put  his  hat 
on  his  head,  took  three  steps  to  the  door, 
then  turned  round  and  took  the  crucifix. 
His  wife  trembled  with  delight.  "He  is 
going  to  Duvivier's,"  she  thought.  As 
soon  as  he  had  gone  out,  Madame  de  Mer- 
ret rang  for  Rosalie.  "The  pick,  the 
pick  !  "  she  cried  in  a  voice  of  terror ;  "  to 
work  !  I  saw  how  Gorenflot  began  j'^es- 
terday;  we  shall  have  time  to  make  a 
hole  and  stop  it  up  again."  In  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye  Rosalie  had  brought  her 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


237 


mistress  a  sort  of  marline,  and  she  be- 
gan to  set  to  work  to  pull  down  the  wall 
with  an  energy  of  which  no  words  could 
give  the  least  idea.  She  had  already  dis- 
lodged some  of  the  bricks ;  she  was 
gathering  up  her  strength  for  a  still  more 
vigorous  blow,  when  she  saw  Monsieur  de 
Merret  standing  behind  her.  She  fell  on 
the  floor  in  a  swoon. 

"Lay  madame  on  the  bed,"  said  the 
Picard  coldly. 

Foreseeing  what  would  happen  during 
his  absence,  he  had  laid  a  trap  for  his  wife. 
He  had  really  written  to  the  mayor  and 
sent  for  Duvivier.  In  fact  the  jeweler 
arrived  just  after  the  disorder  in  which 
the  room  lay  had  been  cleared  away. 

"Duvivier,"   he  asked,  "did  you  not 


buy  some  crucifixes  from  those  Spaniards 
when  they  passed  through  the  town  ?  " 

"No,  monsieur." 

Monsieur  darted  the  look  of  a  tiger  at 
his  wife,  and  she  returned  it.  "Jean," 
he  added,  "  have  my  meals  ser\'ed  in  Ma- 
dame de  Merret's  room  ;  she  is  ill.  I  shall 
not  leave  her  until  she  is  restored  to 
health." 

The  cruel  Picard  remained  for  twenty 
days  close  to  his  wife.  During  the  first 
part  of  the  time,  if  any  sound  came  from 
the  walled-up  wardrobe,  and  Josephine 
began  to  implore  him  to  have  mercy  on 
the  dying  stranger,  he  prevented  her  from 
saying  a  single  word  by  answering,  "  Tou 
swore  upon  the  crucifix  that  no  one  was 
there." 


V. 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


One  of  the  few  salons  frequented  by  the 
archbishop  of  Besangon,  under  the  Res- 
toration, was  that  of  Madame  the  Baron- 
ess de  Watteville,  for  whom  he  had  a  pe- 
culiar affection  on  account  of  her  religious 
sentiments.  A  word  about  this  lady,  per- 
haps the  most  important  feminine  person- 
age of  Besangon. 

Monsieur  de  Watteville,  a  descendant  of 
the  famous  Watteville,  the  most  fortunate 
and  most  illustrious  of  murderers  and  rene- 
gades (his  extraoi'dinary  adventures  are 
much  too  historical  to  be  related  here)  — 
Monsieur  de  Watte%ille  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  as  gentle  and  quiet  as  his 
ancestor  of  the  grand  age  had  been  fiery 
and  turbulent.  After  having  lived  in  the 
Comte  *  like  a  wood-louse  in  the  crack  of 
a  panel,  he  had  married  the  heiress  of  the 
celebrated  family  of  De  Rupt.  Mademoi- 
selle de  Rupt  united  estates  worth  twenty 
thousand  francs  a  year  to  the  ten  thou- 
sand francs  a  year  in  real  property  of  the 

*  A  district  of  France,  formerlj'  a  province  called 
the  Comte,  of  which  Besangon  is  the  chief  place. 


Baron  de  Watteville.  The  arms  of  the 
Swiss  gentleman  (the  Watte\ilk;s  are 
Swiss)  were  placed  en  abime  on  the  an- 
cient escutcheon  of  the  De  Rupts.  This 
marriage,  decided  on  ever  since  1802,  took 
place  in  1815,  after  the  second  Restora- 
tion. Three. years  after  the  birth  of  a 
daughter,  all  the  relations  of  Madame  de 
Watteville  were  dead  and  their  inheri- 
tances fallen  in.  They  then  sold  the  house 
of  Monsieur  de  Watteville  to  establish 
themselves  in  the  Rue  de  la  Pi'efecture, 
in  the  handsome  Hotel  de  Rupt,  whose 
vast  gardens  extend  to  the  Rue  du  Per- 
ron. Madame  de  Watteville,  devout  as 
a  young  girl,  became  still  more  a  devotee 
after  her  marriage.  She  is  one  of  the 
queens  of  the  saintly  fraternity  which 
imparts  to  the  best  society  of  Besancoa 
a  somber  air  and  prudish  manners  in 
harmony  with  the  character  of  the  city. 
Monsieur  the  Baron  de  Watteville,  a 
spare,  thin  man  of  no  intellect,  appeared 
wornout,  without  anybody  knowing  by 
what — for  he  reveled  in  a  gross  igno- 
rance— but  as  his  wife  was  of  an  ar^'lj^^. 


238' 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


fair  complexion,  and  an  angular  disposi- 
tion become  proverbial  (they  still  say 
"  As  pointed  as  Madame  de  Watteville  "), 
some  scoffers  in  the  mairistracy  main- 
tained that  tlie  baron  had  worn  himself 
out  ag-ainst  this  rock.  Rupt  evidently 
comes  from  i-upes.  Intelligent  observers 
of  social  nature  will  not  fail  to  remark 
that  Rosalie  was  the  only  fruit  of  the 
nnion  of  the  De  Wattevilles  and  De  Rupts. 

Monsieur  de  Watteville  passed  his  life 
in  an  elegant  turner's  shop ;  he  took  to 
turning  !  As  a  supplement  to  this  exist- 
ence, he  indulged  in  the  mania  of  making 
collections.  To  philosophic  medical  men, 
given  to  the  study  of  insanitj^,  this  ten- 
dency to  collect  is  a  first  sign  of  mental 
alienation,  when  it  is  exercised  on  trifles. 
The  Baron  de  Watteville  amassed  the 
shells  and  geological  fragments  of  the 
district  of  Besangon.  People  fond  of  con- 
tradicting, particularly  the  women,  said 
of  Monsieur  de  Watteville,  "He  has  a 
noble  mind  !  He  saw,  from  the  start  of 
his  manied  life,  that  he  would  not  be  able 
to  get  the  upper  hand  of  his  wife,  so  he 
threw  himself  into  a  mechanical  occupa- 
tion and  into  good  living." 

The  Hotel  de  Rupt  was  not  without  a 
certain  splendor  worthy  of  the  time  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  recalled  the  nobility  of 
the  two  families  united  in  1815.  It  shone 
with  an  ancient  luxury  which  did  not  know 
it  was  the  fashion.  The  crystal  lusters 
cut  in  the  shape  of  leaves,  the  hangings, 
the  damask,  the  carpets,  the  gilded  furni- 
ture— everything  was  in  harmon3'^  with 
the  old  liveries  and  the  old  servants.  Al- 
though served  in  tarnished  family  plate, 
surrounding  a  glass  epergne  ornamented 
with  Saxony  china,  the  fare  was  exquisite. 
The  wines  chosen  \)y  Monsieur  de  Watte- 
ville, who,  to  fill  up  his  time  and  introduce 
a  little  variety  into  his  existence,  had  ap- 
pointed himself  his  own  cellarman,  en- 
joyed a  sort  of  departmental  celebrity. 
The  fortune  of  Madame  deWatte\ille  was 
considerable,  for  that  of  her  husband, 
which  consisted  of  the  estate  of  Rouxey, 
worth  about  ten  thousand  francs  a  year, 
had  not  been  augmented  by  any  inheri- 
tance.    It  is  needless  to  observe  that  the 

^-ntimate  acquaintance  of  Madame  de 
end 


Watteville  with  the  archbishop  had  in- 
stalled at  her  table  the  three  or  four  re- 
markable or  intelligent  abbes  of  the  arch- 
bishopric who  did  not  object  to  good 
living. 

At  a  dinner  of  ceremony,  given  in  re- 
turn for  I  know  not  what  marriage  feast, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  Septem- 
ber, 1834,  at  the  moment  when  the  women 
were  ranged  in  a  cii'cle  before  the  chim- 
ney of  the  salon,  and  the  men  in  groups 
at  the  windows,  there  was  heard  an  ex- 
clamation at  tlie  sight  of  Monsieur  I'Abbe 
de  Grancey,  who  was  announced. 

"Well,  how  goes  the  cause?"  they 
cried. 

"Won,"  replied  the  vicar  -  general. 
"  The  decree  of  the  court,  which  we  de- 
spaired of — ^j'ou  know  why  "  (this  was  an 
allusion  to  the  composition  of  the  royal 
court  since  1830 :  the  Legitimists  had 
neai'ly  all  resigned) — "the  decree  is  just 
given  in  our  favor  on  all  points,  and  re- 
verses the  judgment  of  Fii-st  Listance." 

"Everybody  thought  3'ou  were  lost." 

"And  so  we  were  without  me.  I  told 
our  counsel  to  go  off  to  Paris;  and  I 
was  able  to  take,  at  the  moment  of 
battle,  a  new  counsel,  to  whom  we  owe 
the  gain  of  our  cause — an  extraorkinary 
man." 

"  In  Besancon  ?  "  said  Monsieur  de 
Watteville,  innocently. 

"In  Besancon,"  replied  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey. 

"  Ah,  yes,  Savaron  !  "  said  a  handsome 
young  man,  sitting  by  the  baroness,  and 
named  De  Soulas. 

"  He  sat  up  five  or  six  nights,  he  de- 
voured the  papers  and  briefs ;  he  had 
seven  or  eight  conferences  of  several 
hours  with  me,"  resumed  Monsieur  de 
Grancej',  who  reappeared  at  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt  for  the  first  time  in  three  weeks. 
' '  In  short.  Monsieur  Savaron  has  just  com- 
pletely beaten  the  celebrated  counsel  our 
adversaries  had  sent  to  Paris  for.  This 
young  man  was  marvelous,  according  to 
the  judges.  Thus,  the  chapter  is  doubly 
a  conqueror  ;  it  has  conquered  in  law  and 
also  in  politics  ;  it  has  vanquished  Liber- 
alism in  the  person  of  the  defender  of  our 
hotel  de  ville.      '  Our  adversaines,' said 


ALBERT    SAVARUS 


239 


our  advocate,  '  must  not  expect  to  find 
everywhere  a  disposition  to  ruin  arch- 
bishoprics.' The  president  was  obliged 
to  order  silence.  All  the  Bisontines  ap- 
plauded. Thus,  the  buildings  of  the  old 
convenu  remain  the  pi'opert^'  of  the  chap- 
ter of  the  cathedral  of  Besan^on.  Mon- 
sieur Savarin  afterward  invited  his  bro- 
ther barrister  from  Paris  to  dinner,  on 
leaving  the  court.  The  latter,  on  accept- 
ing, said,  '  All  honor  to  all  conquerors,' 
and  congratulated  him  on  his  triumph 
without  rancor." 

"But  where  did  you  discover  this  ad- 
vocate?" said  Madame  de  Watteville. 
"  I  never  heard  his  name." 

"But  you  can  see  his  windows  from 
here,"  replied  the  vicar-general.  "Mon- 
sieur Savaron  lives  in  the  Rue  du  Perron; 
the  garden  of  his  house  has  the  same 
party  wall  as  j'ours." 

"He  does  not  belong  to  the  Comte," 
said  Monsieur  de  Watteville. 

"  He  belongs  so  little  to  anywhere,  that 
nobody  knows  where  he  comes  from," 
said  Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 

"  But  what  is  he  ?  "  asked  Madame  de 
Watteville,  taking  the  arm  of  Monsieur 
de  Soulas  to  go  into  the  dining-room. 
"If  he  is  a  stranger,  by  what  chance  has 
he  come  to  settle  at  Besancon  ?  It  is  a 
very  singular  idea  for  a  barrister." 

"Verj^  singular!"  repeated  young 
Amedee  de  Soulas,  whose  biography  be- 
comes necessary  to  the  comprehension 
of  this  history. 

From  time  immemorial  France  and  En- 
gland have  kept  up  an  exchange  of  frivoli- 
ties, the  more  persistent  because  it  escapes 
the  tyranny  of  the  custom-house.  Tlie 
fashion  we  call  English  in  Paris  is  called 
French  in  London,  and  vice  versa.  The 
enmity  of  the  two  peoples  ceases  on  two 
points,  the  question  of  words  and  that  of 
di-ess.  "God  save  the  King,"  the  na- 
tional air  of  England,  is  a  piece  of  music 
composed  by  Lulli  for  the  chorus  of 
"Esther"  or  "Athalie."  The  pamers 
brought  by  an  Englishwoman  to  Paris 
were  invented  in  London,  we  know  why, 
by  a  Frenchwoman,  the  famous  Duchess 
of  Portsmouth.  They  began  by  making 
fun  of  them  to  such  an  extent  that  the 


first  Englishwoman  who  appeared  m  the 
Tuileries  was  nearly  crushed  by  the  crowd; 
but  they  were  adopted.  This  fashion 
tyrannized  over  the  women  of  Europe  for 
half  a  century.  At  the  peace  of  1815, 
they  laughed  for  a  whole  year  at  the  long 
waists  of  the  English — all  Paris  went  to 
see  Pothier  and  Bninet  in  the  "  Anglaises 
pourrire ;"  but  in  181G  and  1817,  the  waist- 
bands of  the  French,  which  confined  their 
bosoms  in  1814,  descended  by  degrees  until 
they  rested  on  their  hips.  In  ten  years, 
England  has  made  us  two  little  linguistic 
presents.  To  the  incroyable,  the  merveil- 
leux,  and  the  elegant,  those  three  heirs  of 
the  pet its-mattres,  whose  etj^mology  Ls 
rather  indecent,  have  succeeded  the 
dandy,  then  the  lion.  The  lion  has  not 
produced  a  lioness.  The  lionne  is  due  to 
the  famous  song  of  Alfred  de  Musset : 

"  Avez  vous  vu  clans  Barcelone  .  .  . 
C'est  ma  maitresse  et  ina  lionne." 

There  has  been  a  fusion,  or,  if  you  will,  a 
confusion,  between  the  two  terms  and  the 
two  dominant  ideas.  When  an  absurdity 
amuses  Paris,  which  devours  as  many 
chefs-d'oeuvre  as  absurdities,  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  the  provinces  to  do  without  it. 
Thus,  as  soon  as  the  lion  exhibited  in 
Paris  his  mane,  his  beard  and  his  mus- 
tache, his  waistcoats,  and  his  eye-glass 
held  without  the  help  of  the  hands,  by 
the  contraction  of  the  check  and  the  eye- 
brow, the  capitals  of  some  of  the  depart- 
ments immediately  had  their  swh-lions 
who  protested,  by  the  elegance  of  their 
trouser-straps,  against  the  slovenliness  of 
their  compatriots. 

Thus  Besancon  rejoiced,  in  1834.  in  a 
lion  in  the  person  of  Monsieur  Amedee 
Sylvain  Jacques  de  Soulas — ^written  Sou- 
leyas  during  the  Spanish  occupation. 
Amedee  de  Soulas  is  perhaps  the  only 
person  in  Besancon  who  is  descended  from 
a  Spanish  family.  Spain  sent  her  people 
into  the  Comte  to  look  after  lier  alTaii-s, 
but  very  few  Spaniards  settled  there. 
The  Soulases  remained  there  on  account 
of  their  alliance  with  Cardinal  Granvelle. 
Young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  was  always 
talking  of  leaving  Besancon  —  a  dull, 
bigoted,   unintellectual    city,   a    war-like 


240 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


and  garrison  city,  whose  manners  and 
customs,  however,  and  whose  physiogno- 
my are  worth  describing.  This  avowed 
intention  permitted  liim  to  hve,  as  a  man 
uncertain  of  his  future,  in  three  rooms, 
very  slightly  furnished,  at  the  end  of  the 
Rue  Neuve,  at  tlie  spot  where  it  joins  the 
Rue  d<!  la  Prefecture. 

Young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  could  not 
dispense  with  a  tigc^r.  This  tiger  was  the 
son  of  one  of  his  farmers,  a  little,  thick- 
set boy,  fourteen  years  old,  named  Baby- 
las.  The  lion  dressed  his  tiger  very  well: 
a  short  coat  of  iron-gray  cloth,  with  a 
varnished  leather  belt,  breeches  of  bright 
blue  plush,  red  waistcoat,  varnished  top- 
boots,  a  round  hat  with  a  black  band,  and 
yellow  buttons  with  the  arms  of  Soulas. 
Amedee  gave  this  boy  white  cotton  gloves, 
his  washing,  and  thirty-six  francs  a  month 
to  keep  himself,  which  appeared  monstrous 
to  the  work-girls  of  Besan^on.  Four 
hundred  and  twenty  francs  to  a  child  of 
fifteen,  without  reckoning  perquisites ! 
The  perquisites  consisted  of  the  sale  of  the 
old  clothes,  of  a  "tip"  when  Soulas  ex- 
changed one  of  his  horses,  and  the  sale  of 
the  manure.  The  two  horses,  managed 
with  sordid  economy,  cost,  one  with  the 
other,  eight  hundred  francs  a  year.  The 
accounts  for  things  supplied  from  Paris, 
such  as  perfumerj'',  cravats,  jewelry, 
pots  of  blacking,  and  clothes,  reached 
twelve  hundred  francs.  If  you  add  to- 
gether groom  or  tiger,  horses,  superfine 
get-up,  and  a  rent  of  six  hundred  francs, 
you  will  get  a  total  of  three  thousand 
francs.  Now,  the  father  of  young  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  had  not  left  him  more  than 
four  thousand  francs  a  year,  the  i^roduce 
of  some  rather  poor  and  small  farms, 
which  required  keeping  in  repair,  and 
whose  repairs  imposed  an  unpleasant  un- 
certainty on  their  revenue.  The  lion  had 
scarcely  three  francs  a  day  left  for  his  liv- 
ing, his  pocket  money,  and  card  money. 
But  he  often  dined  out,  and  breakfasted 
with  remarkable  frugality.  When  he  was 
absolutely  obliged  to  dine  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, he  sent  his  tiger  to  the  eating-house 
for  two  dishes,  on  which  he  did  not  spend 
more  than  twenty-five  sous .  Young  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  passed  for  a  dissipated 


fellow  who  had  his  follies,  while  the  poor 
devil,  to  make  the  two  ends  of  the  year 
meet,  had  to  exert  an  ingenuity  and  a 
talent  that  would  have  been  the  glory  of 
a  good  housekeeper.  They  did  not  yet 
know,  particularly  at  Besangon,  how  far 
six  francs'  worth  of  varnish  put  on  to 
boots  or  shoes,  yellow  gloves  at  fifty  sous 
cleaned  in  the  most  profound  secrecy  to 
make  them  last  three  times,  neckties  at 
six  francs  which  last  three  months,  four 
waistcoats  at  twenty-five  francs,  and 
trousers  which  fit  well  over  the  boot,  im- 
pose on  a  capital.  How  should  it  be  other- 
wise, since  we  see,  in  Paris,  the  women 
bestowing  a  marked  attention  on  fools 
who  visit  them  and  take  precedence  of 
the  most  remarkable  men,  by  virtue  of 
those  frivolous  advantages  which  can  be 
purchased  for  fifteen  louis,  including  hair- 
dressing  and  a  fine  linen  shirt  ? 

If  this  unfortunate  young  man  appears 
to  you  to  have  become  a  lion  at  a  cheap 
rate,  learn  that  Amedee  de  Soulas  had 
been  three  times  to  Switzerland  by  public 
and  private  conveyance,  twice  to  Paris, 
and  once  from  Paris  to  London.  He 
passed  for  an  accomplished  traveler,  and 
could  say,  "  In  England,  where  I  have 
been,"  etc.  The  dowagers  said  to  him, 
"You,  who  have  been  in  England,''  etc. 
He  had  even  penetrated  into  Lombardy 
and  the  shelves  of  the  Italian  lakes.  He 
read  the  new  works.  To  sum  up,  while 
he  was  cleaning  his  gloves,  the  tiger 
Babylas  told  visitors,  "  Master  is  study- 
ing." Accordingly,  they  had  tried  to 
discredit  young  Amedee  de  Soulas  by  the 
help  of  the  expression,  "  He  is  a  man  of 
advanced  ideas."  Amedee  possessed  the 
talent  of  descanting  with  Bisontine  grav- 
ity' on  the  commonplace  topics  of  the  day, 
which  gave  him  the  credit  of  being  one  of 
the  most  enlightened  members  of  the  no- 
bility. He  carried  on  his  person  jewelry 
of  the  latest  fashion,  and  in  his  head 
ideas  hall-marked  by  the  press. 

In  1834  Amedee  was  a  young  man  of 
five  and  twenty,  of  middling  height,  dark, 
with  a  strongly  developed  chest,  shoul- 
ders to  match,  well-rounded  thighs,  a 
foot  already  fat,  plump  white  hands, 
whiskers  all  round  his  face,  mustaches 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


241 


which  rivaled  those  of  the  garrison,  a 
large,  good-natured,  ruddy  face,  a  flat 
nose,  brown  eyes  without  expression  ;  for 
the  rest,  nothing  Spanish  about  him.  He 
was  rapidly  advancing  toward  a  corpu- 
lence fatal  to  his  pretensions.  His  nails 
were  cultivated,  his  beard  was  trimmed, 
the  smallest  details  of  his  dress  were  ar- 
ranged with  English  particularity.  Ac- 
cordingly, Amedee  de  Soulas  was  con- 
sidered the  handsomest  man  in  Besancon. 
A  hair-dresser,  who  came  to  him  at  a 
regular  hour  (another  luxury  of  sixty 
francs  a  year),  proclaimed  him  the  sov- 
ereign arbiter  in  all  matters  of  taste  and 
elegance.  Amedee  slept  late,  dressed, 
and  went  out  on  horseback  about  mid- 
day to  practice  pistol-shooting  at  one  of 
his  farms.  He  attached  the  same  impor- 
tance to  this  occupation  as  Lord  Byi'on 
did  in  his  latter  days.  Then  he  returned 
at  three  o'clock  on  his  horse,  to  the  ad- 
miration of  the  grisettes  and  of  every- 
body who  happened  to  be  at  their  win- 
dows. After  some  pretended  studies, 
which  appeared  to  occupy  him  until  four 
o'clock,  he  dressed  to  go  out  to  dinner, 
passed  the  evening  in  the  salons  of  the 
Bisontine  aristocracy,  jilaying  whist, 
and  came  home  to  bed  at  eleven.  No 
existence  could  possibly  be  more  open, 
more  steady,  or  more  irreproachable,  for 
,he  went  to  church  punctually  on  Sundays 
and  fete-Asuys. 

In  order  that  you  may  comprehend 
how  exacting  was  this  life,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  explain  Besancon  in  a  few  words. 
No  town  offers  a  more  deaf  and  dumb 
resistance  to  progress.  At  Besancon,  the 
offlcials,  the  functionaries,  the  military 
— in  short,  everybody  sent  there  by  the 
government,  by  Paris,  to  occupy  a  post 
of  any  sort — are  designated  in  a  body  by 
the  expressive  name  of  the  Colony.  The 
Colony  is  the  neutral  ground,  the  only 
one  where,  as  at  church,  the  noble  and 
the  middle-class  society  of  the  town  can 
meet.  On  this  ground  commence,  over  a 
word,  a  look,  or  a  gesture,  those  hatreds 
of  house  to  house  between  women  noble 
and  plebeian,  which  last  until  death,  and 
enlarge  still  more  the  impassable  gulfs 
which  separate  the  two  classes.    With 


the  exception  of  the  Clermont  Mont-Saint 
Jeans,  the  BeaufTremonts,  the  De  Sceys, 
the  Gramonts,  and  a  few  others,  who 
only  inhabit  the  Comte  by  their  estates, 
the  Bisontine  nobility  does  not  date  further 
back  than  two  centuries,  the  epoch  of  the 
conquest  by  Louis  XIV.  These  people 
are  essentially  parliamentary,  stiff,  stuck- 
up,  grave,  positive,  and  haughty,  to  a 
degree  with  which  nothing  can  compare, 
not  even  the  court  of  Vienna ;  for  the 
Bisontines  in  this  respect  would  put  the 
Viennese  to  shame.  Victor  Hugo,  No- 
dier,  Fourier,  the  glories  of  tlie  town,  are 
never  mentioned  ;  nobody  thinks  anything 
of  them.  The  marriages  of  the  nobility 
are  arranged  from  the  cradles  of  the  chil- 
dren, so  strictly  are  the  most  trifling,  as 
well  as  the  most  important,  matters  set- 
tled beforehand.  Never  has  a  stranger 
or  an  intruder  crept  into  one  of  these 
houses,  and  to  get  colonels  or  oflicers  of 
title  belonging  to  the  best  families  of 
France  (when  they  happened  to  be  in 
garrison)  received  into  them  has  required 
efforts  of  diplomacj'  which  Prince  Talley- 
rand would  have  been  glad  to  know,  in 
order  to  make  use  of  them  at  a  congress. 
In  1834  Amedee  was  the  onl\'  one  who 
wore  straps  in  Besancon.  This  explains 
at  once  the  lionism  of  young  Monsieur  de 
Soulas.  In  brief,  a  little  anecdote  will 
make  j'ou  understand  Besancon. 

Some  time  before  the  daj-  on  which  this 
history  commences,  the  prefecture  had  felt 
the  necessity  of  getting  fi'om  Paris  an 
editor  for  then*  paper,  in  order  to  defend 
themselves  against  the  little  ''Gazette," 
which  the  great  "  Gazette  "  had  laid  at 
Besancon,  and  against  the  '-Patriote," 
which  the  Republic  kept  sputtering 
there.  Paris  sent  a  young  man  igno- 
rant of  the  Comte,  who  came  out  with 
an  article  {premier  Besangon)  in  the 
style  of  the  Charivari.  The  leader  of 
the  moderate  party,  a  member  of  the 
town  council,  sent  for  the  journalist  and 
said  to  him — 

"  Learn,  sir,  that  we  are  serious — more 
than  serious,  tedious.  We  do  not  want 
to  be  amused,  and  we  are  furious  at  hav- 
ing laughed.  Be  as  hard  to  digest  as  the 
thickest  amplifications  of  the  '  Revue  des 


242 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Deux  Mondcs,'  and  you  will  scarcch'  be 
up  to  the  tone  of  the  Bisontines." 

The  editor  took  the  warning,  and  talked 
the  most  incomprehensible  philosophic 
jarg'on.     He  had  a  perfect  success. 

If  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  did  not 
lose  in  the  estimation  of  the  salons  of 
Besancon,  it  was  pure  vanity  on  their 
part ;  the  aristocracy  was  g-lad  to  have 
the  air  of  modernizing-  itself,  and  to  be 
able  to  present  to  the  noble  Parisians 
traveling  in  the  Comt^  a  3'oung  man  who 
resembled  tliem— almost.  All  this  hidden 
labor,  all  this  powder  thrown  into  people's 
eyes,  this  apparent  folly,  and  this  latent 
prudence  had  an  end,  without  which  the 
Bisontine  lion  Avould  not  have  belonged 
to  the  province.  Amedee  wanted  to  ar- 
rive at  a  favorable  marriage  by  proving, 
some  day,  that  his  farms  were  not  mort- 
gaged, and  that  he  had  saved  money.  He 
wanted  to  occupy  the  attention  of  the 
town,  to  be  its  handsomest  and  most  ele- 
gant man,  in  order  to  obtain  first  the 
notice,  and  then  the  hand,  of  Mademoi- 
selle Rosalie  de  Watteville. 

In  1830,  at  the  moment  when  j^oung 
Monsieur  de  Soulas  began  his  profession 
of  a  dandy,  Rosalie  was  fourteen. 

In  1834,  then.  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville had  attained  the  age  when  a  young 
person  is  easily  struck  by  the  peculiarities 
which  attracted  to  Amedee  the  attention 
of  the  town.  There  are  a  great  many 
lions  who  become  lions  by  calculation 
and  on  speculation.  The  Wattevilles, 
with  an  income  of  fifty  thousand  francs 
a  year  for  the  last  twelve  years,  did  not 
spend  more  than  four-and-twenty  thou- 
sand a  year,  although  they  entertained 
the  best  society  of  Besancon  on  Mondays 
and  Fridays.  They  gave  a  dinner  on 
Monday,  and  a  soiree  on  Friday.  To 
what  a  sum  would  not  six-and-twenty 
thousand  francs,  annually  economized, 
and  invested  Avith  the  prudence  which 
distinguishes  these  old  families,  amount 
in  twelve  yeai's  ?  It  was  pretty  generally 
believed  that  Madame  de  Watteville,  satis- 
lied  Avith  the  amount  of  her  landed  prop- 
erty, had  put  her  economies  into  the  Three 
per  Cents  in  1830.  The  fortune  of  Rosa- 
lie would  amount  then,  according  to  the 


best  informed,  to  twenty  thousand  francs 
a  year. 

For  five  years,  the  lion  had  worked  like 
a  mole  to  establish  himself  in  the  good 
graces  of  the  severe  baroness,  while  living 
in  a  stj'le  to  flatter  the  self-love  of  Made- 
moiselle de  WattevUle.  The  baroness  was 
in  the  secret  of  the  contrivances  by  which 
Amedee  managed  to  keep  up  liis  position 
in  Besancon,  and  esteemed  him  for  them. 
Soulas  had  put  himself  under  the  wing  of 
the  baroness  when  she  was  thirty.  He 
had  had  the  audacity  to  admire  her  and 
make  her  his  idol  then  ;  he  had  now  grad- 
ually attained  the  privilege,  he  alone  of 
all  the  woi^ld,  of  relating  to  her  the  high- 
spiced  anecdotes  which  nearly'  all  devotees 
love  to  hear,  authorized  as  they  are  by 
their  great  virtues  to  contemplate  the 
abyss  without  falling  into  it,  and  the 
snares  of  the  devil  without  being  caught 
in  them.  Do  you  understand  why  this 
lion  did  not  indulge  in  the  slightest  in- 
trigue? He  crystalized  his  life,  he  lived 
almost  in  the  street,  in  order  to  play  the 
part  of  a  sacrificed  lover  to  the  baroness, 
and  enable  her  to  indulge  the  spirit  in 
the  sins  she  denied  to  the  flesh.  A  man 
who  possesses  the  privilege  of  dropping 
naughty  things  into  the  ear  of  a  devotee 
is  always  a  charuiing  man  in  her  eyes. 
If  this  exemplary  lion  had  known  the 
human  heart  better,  he  might  without 
danger  have  allowed  himself  some  little 
intrigues  with  the  grisettes  of  Besancon, 
who  looked  upon  him  as  a  king ;  it  would 
probably  only  have  helped  on  his  affairs 
with  the  severe  and  prudish  baroness. 
To  Rosalie  this  Cato  appeared  extrav- 
agant; he  professed  a  life  of  elegance,  he 
showed  her  in  perspective  the  brilliant 
part  of  a  woman  of  fashion  at  Paris,  to 
which  he  would  go  as  a  deputy.  These 
knowing  maneuvers  were  crowned  with 
full  success.  In  1834,  the  mothers  of  the 
fortj^  noble  families  which  composed  the 
choice  society  of  Besancon  quoted  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  as  the  most  charming 
young  man  of  Besancon ;  nobody  dared 
to  set  himself  up  against  the  cock  of  the 
Hotel  de  Rupt,  and  all  Besancon  re- 
garded him  as  the  future  spouse  of  Ros- 
alie de  Watteville.     There   had   already 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


M3 


been  some  words  exchanged  between  the 
baroness  and  Amedee,  which  the  pre- 
tended incapacity  of  the  baron  rendered 
almost  a  guarantee. 

Mademoiselle  Rosalie  de  Watteville, 
whom  her  fortune  (vvhicli  would  some 
day  be  enormous)  invested  with  con- 
siderable importance,  brought  up  witliin 
the  walls  of  the  Hotel  de  Rupt — which 
her  mother  rarely  quitted,  so  strongly 
was  she  attached  to  the  dear  archbishop 
—had  been  strictly  kept  under  by  an  ex- 
clusively religious  education,  and  by  tlie 
despotism  of  her  mother,  who  managed 
her  severely  on  principle.  Rosalie  knew 
absolutely  nothing.  Is  it  knowing  any- 
thing to  have  studied  geography  in 
Guthrie,  sacred  history,  ancient  history, 
the  history  of  France,  and  the  four  rules, 
the  whole  passed  through  the  sieve  by 
an  old  Jesuit?  Drawing,  music,  and 
dancing  were  forbidden,  as  more  likely 
to  corrupt  than  embellish  life.  The 
baroness  taught  her  daughter  all  the 
stitches  possible  in  tapestry  and  femi- 
nine handiwork :  sewing,  embroider^-, 
and  knitting.  At  seventeen,  Rosalie 
had  read  nothing  but  the  "  Lettres  Edi- 
fiantes  ■'  and  works  on  heraldry'.  Never 
had  a  newspaper  sullied  her  sight.  She 
heard  mass  every  morning-  at  the  cathe- 
dral, to  which  she  was  taken  by  her 
mother ;  came  home  to  breakfast,  studied, 
after  a  little  walk  in  the  garden,  and  re- 
ceived visitors,  seated  bj'  the  baroness, 
until  dinner  time ;  then  afterward,  ex- 
cept on  Mondays  and  Fridays,  she  ac- 
companied Madame  de  Watteville  to 
the  soirees,  without  being  able  to  talk 
more  than  was  allowed  by  the  maternal 
regulations. 

At  eighteen  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville was  a  young  g'irl,  fi-ail,  slender,  flat, 
fair,  white,  and  of  the  greatest  insignifi- 
cance. Her  eyes,  of  a  pale  blue,  were 
embellished  by  the  play  of  the  eyelids, 
which,  when  lowered,  produced  a  shade 
on  the  cheek  ;  freckles  impaired  the  effect 
of  her  forehead,  otherwise  well  shaped. 
Her  face  exactly  resembled  the  saints  of 
Albert  Durer  and  the  painters  before 
Perugino — the  same  full,  though  slender, 
shape,  the  same  delicacy  saddened  by  ecs- 


tasy, the  same  severe  simplicity.     Every- 
thing about  her,  even  her  attitude,  re- 
called those  virgins  whose  beauty  appears 
in  its  mystic  luster  only  to  the  eye  of  the 
attentive  connoisseur.     She  had  fine,  but 
red,  hands,  and  the   prettiest  foot— the 
foot  of  an  aristocrat.     She  generally  wore 
simple  cotton  dresses,   but  on  Sundays 
and  fetes  her  mother  allowed  her  silk 
ones.     Her  bonnets,  made  at  Besancon, 
rendered    her    almost    ugly ;    while  her 
mother    endeavored    to    borrow    grace, 
beauty,  and  elegance  from  the  milliners 
of  Paris,  from  whence  she  procured  all 
the  shghtest  articles  of  dress,  by  the  care 
of  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas.     Rosalie 
had  never  worn  silk  stockings  nor  boots, 
but  cotton  stockings  and  leather  shoes. 
On  gala  days  she  was  dressed  in  a  muslin 
frock,  with  no  head-dress,  and  had  bronzed 
leather  shoes.     This  education,  and  the 
modest  demeanor  of  Rosahe,   concealed 
a  character  of  iron.     Pliysiologists  and 
profound  observers  of  human  nature  will 
tell  you,  to  your  great  astonisliment,  per- 
haps, that  humorous  characters,  wit,  and 
genius  reappear  in  families  at  great  inter- 
vals, absolutely  like  what  are  called  lie- 
reditary  maladies.     Thus  talent,  like  the 
gout,  sometimes  jumps  over  two  genera- 
tions.    We  have  an  illustrious  example 
of  this  phenomenon  in  George  Sand,  in 
whom  are  revived  the  puissant  and  in- 
ventive genius  of  Marshal  de  Saxe,  whose 
natural  granddaughter  she  is.    The  de- 
cisive character,  the  romantic  audacity, 
of  the  famous  Watteville  were  renewed 
in  the  character  of  his  great-niece,  still 
further  aggravated  by  the  tenacity  and 
the  family  pride  of  the  De  Rupts.     But 
these  qualities,  or  these  defects,  if  you 
will,  were  as  profoundly  hidden  in  this 
young  girl's  mind,  appax'ently  soft  and 
feeble,  as  the  boiling  lava  in  a  mountain 
before  it  becomes  a  volcano.    Madame  de 
Watteville  alone,  perhaps,  suspected  tliis 
legacy  of  the  two  races.    She  behaved 
so  severely'  to  her  Rosalie,  that  she  replied 
one  ilay  to  the  archbishop,  who  reproached 
her  with  treating  her  too  harshly — 

"Leave  me  to  manage  her,  monseig- 
neur;  I  know  her.  She  has  got  moie 
than  one  Beelzebub  in  her  body." 


244 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


The  baroness  watched  her  daughter 
all  the  more  because  she  thoug-lit  her 
honor  as  a  mother  pledged.  In  short, 
she  had  nothing  else  to  do.  Clotilde  de 
Rupt,  then  thirty-five  years  old,  and  al- 
.  most  the  widow  of  a  husband  who  turned 
egg-cups  in  all  sorts  of  wood,  who  set  his 
heart-  on  making  rings  with  six  streaks  in 
ironwood,  and  manufactured  snuff-boxes 
for  his  friends,  coquetted  in  all  iimocence 
and  honor  with  Amedee  de  Soulas.  When 
this  young  man  was  in  the  house  she  sent 
away  and  recalled  her  daughter  in  turns, 
and  tried  to  surprise  in  this  young  heart 
a  movement  of  jealousy,  in  order  to  have 
an  opportunity  of  quelling  it.  She  imi- 
tated the  police  in  their  dealings  with  the 
Republicans  ;  but  it  was  in  vain.  Rosalie 
did  not  give  way  to  any  sort  of  insurbor- 
dination.  Then  the  austere  devotee  re- 
proached her  daughter  with  her  complete 
Insensibility.  Rosalie  knew  her  mother 
well  enough  to  know  that,  if  she  had  ap- 
peared to  like  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas, 
she  would  have  drawn  down  on  herself  a 
sharp  reproof.  So,  to  all  her  mother's 
provocation,  she  replied  by  phrases  of  the 
sort  improperly  called  Jesuitical ;  for  the 
Jesuits  were  strong  and  able,  and  these 
reticences  are  the  ramparts  behind  which 
weakness  shelters  itself.  Then  the  mother 
accused  her  daughter  of  dissimulation.  If, 
by  misfortune,  a  spark  of  the  true  char- 
acter of  the  Watteville  and  De  Rupt 
broke  out,  the  mother  armed  herself 
with  the  respect  due  from  children  to 
their  parents  to  restore  Rosalie  to  pas- 
sive obedience.  This  secret  combat  took 
place  in  the  most  seci-et  precincts  of  do- 
mestic life,  with  closed  doors. 

The  vicar-general,  the  dear  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  the  friend  of  the  late  archbishop, 
however  able  he  might  be  in  his  capacity 
of  grand  penitentiarj'^  of  the  diocese,  could 
not  tell  whether  this  struggle  had  en- 
gendered a  hatred  between  the  mother 
and  daughter,  whether  the  mother  was 
jealous  beforehand,  or  whether  the  court- 
ship of  the  daughter  in  the  person  of  the 
mother  by  Amedee  had  not  gone  beyond 
the  bounds.  In  his  character  of  friend  of 
the  family,  he  did  not  confess  either  the 
mother  or  the  daughter.    Rosalie,  a  little 


too  much  chastised,  morally  speaking,  on 
account  of  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas,  to  use 
a  familiar  expression,  could  not  bear  him. 
Accordingly,  when  he  addressed  his  con- 
versation to  her,  endeavoring  to  surprise 
her  heart,  she  received  him  pretty  coldlj-. 
This  repugnance,  visible  only  to  the  eyes 
of  her  mother,  was  a  continual  subject  of 
reprimand. 

"  Rosalie,  I  do  not  know  why  you  show 
so  much  coldness  to  Amedee.  Is  it  be- 
cause he  is  the  friend  of  the  family',  and 
pleases  your  father  and  me  ?  " 

"Ah,  mamma,"  answered  the  poor 
child  one  daj',  "  if  I  treated  him  well, 
should  I  not  be  still  more  in  the  wrong  ?" 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  that?"  ex- 
claimed Madame  de  Watteville.  "  What 
do  you  mean  by  such  words  ?  Your 
mother  is  unjust,  perhaps,  and  would 
be,  in  any  case,  according  to  you.  Never 
let  your  mouth  utter  such  an  answer  to 
your  mother !  "  etc. 

This  quarrel  lasted  three  hours  and 
three-quarters.  Rosalie  remarked  it. 
The  mother  became  pale  with  rage, 
and  sent  Rosalie  to  her  room,  where 
Rosalie  studied  the  meaning  of  this 
scene  without  being  able  to  discover  it 
— she  was  so  innocent !  Thus,  young 
Monsieur  de  Soulas,  whom  all  the  town 
of  Besancon  thought  very  near  the  end 
toward  which  he  was  straining,  cravats 
spread,  hy  force  of  pots  of  varnish — the 
end  which  made  him  use  up  so  much  black 
pomade  for  his  mustaches,  so  many  fine 
waistcoats,  horse-shoes,  and  stays  (for 
he  wore  a  leather  waistcoat,  the  lion's 
stays)  —  Amedee  was  further  from  it 
than  the  first  comer,  although  he  had 
the  worthj'-  and  noble  Abbe  de  Grancey 
in  his  favor.  Besides,  Rosalie  did  not 
yet  know,  at  the  moment  when  this  his- 
toYy  begins,  that  the  young  Count  Ame- 
dee de  Soulas  was  destined  for  her. 

"Madame,"  said  Monsieur  de  Soulas, 
addressing  the  baroness,  giving  the  soup, 
which  was  a  little  too  hot,  time  to  cool, 
and  affecting  to  render  his  narrative 
quasi-romantic,  "  one  fine  morning  the 
mail  deposited  at  the  Hotel  National  a 
Parisian  who,  after  having  looked  about 
for  apartments,  decided  on  the  first  floor 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


245 


of  the  house  of  Mademoiselle  Galard, 
Rue  du  Perron.  Then  the  stranger  went 
straight  to  the  mairie  to  deposit  a  dec- 
laration of  domicile,  real  and  political. 
Afterward  he  had  himself  inscribed  in 
the  list  of  counsel  practicing  in  the  court, 
presenting  certificates  quite  in  order ; 
and  he  left  with  all  his  new  confreres, 
with  all  the  ministerial '  officers,  with  all 
the  judges  of  the  court,  and  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  tribunal,  a  card  on  which  is 
inscribed,  'Albert  Savaron.'  " 

"The  name  of  Savaron  is  celebrated," 
said  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  very 
strong  in  heraldry.  "The  Savarons  de 
Savarus  are  one  of  the  oldest,  the  noblest, 
and  the  richest  families  in  Belg'ium." 

"  He  is  a  Frenchman  and  a  troubadour, ' ' 
resumed  Amedee  de  Soulas.  "If  he 
wants  to  take  the  arms  of  Savaron  de 
Savarus,  it  must  be  with  a  bar.  There 
is  only  a  demoiselle  Savarus  in  Belgium, 
a  rich,  marriageable  heiress." 

"  The  bar  is  indeed  a  sign  of  bastardy ; 
but  the  bastard  of  a  Count  of  Savarus  is 
noble,"  replied  Rosalie. 

"That  will  do,  mademoiselle,"  said  the 
baroness. 

"You  wanted  her  to  know  heraldry-," 
said  Monsieur  de  Watte\ille,  "  and  she 
knows  it  well." 

"  Pray  go  on,  Monsieur  de  Soulas." 

"  You  can  conceive  that  in  a  town 
where  everything  is  classed,  defined, 
known,  placed,  reckoned  up,  and  num- 
bered, as  at  Besancon,  Albert  Savaron 
was  received  by  our  barristers  without 
difficult}'.  Every  one  contented  himself 
with  saying,  '  Here's  a  poor  devil  who 
does  not  know  Besancon.  Who  the  devil 
can  have  advised  him  to  come  here  ? 
What  does  he  mean  to  do?  To  send 
his  card  to  the  magistrates  instead  of 
calling  himself  !  What  a  blunder  ! '  Ac- 
cordingly, three  days  afterward,  no  more 
Savaron.  He  has  taken  the  late  Monsieur 
Galard's  old  valet-de-chambre,  Jerome, 
who  can  do  a  little  cooking,  for  his  ser- 
vant. People  have  forgotten  Albert  Sav- 
aron all  the  more  readily  because  nobody 
has  seen  or  met  him  since." 

"  Does  he  not  go  to  mass,  then  ?  "  said 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 


"  He  goes  on  Sundays  to  St.  Pierre,  but 
to  the  first  mass  at  eight  o'clock.  He 
gets  up  every  night  between  one  and  two 
o'clock,  works  until  eight,  then  he  break- 
fasts, and  afterward  works  again.  He 
walks  in  the  garden,  and  goes  round  it 
fifty  or  sixty  times;  then  he  goes  in, 
dines,  and  goes  to  bed  between  six  and 
seven." 

"  How  do  you  know  all  that  ?  "  said 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt  to  Monsieur  de 
Soulas. 

"  In  the  first  place,  madame,  I  live  in 
the  Rue  Neuve,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
du  Perron ;  I  look  on  to  the  house  in 
which  this  mysterious  personage  lodges ; 
and  then  there  are  mutual  confabulations 
between  mj'  tiger  and  Jerome." 

"You  talk  to  Babylas,  then  ?  " 

"What  would  you  have  me  do  when  I 
am  out  riding  ?  " 

"  Well,  how  was  it  you  cho.se  a  stranger 
for  your  counsel  ?"  said  the  baroness,  thus 
turning  the  conversation,  to  the  vicar-gen- 
eral. 

"  The  first  president  did  this  advocate 
the  turn  of  appointing  him  to  defend 
officially'  a  half-imbecile  peasant  accused 
of  forgery.  Monsieur  Savaron  got  the 
poor  man  acquitted,  by  proving  his  in- 
nocence and ,  showing  that  he  had  been 
the  tool  of  the  real  culprits.  Not  only 
was  his  theory  triumphant,  but  it  neces- 
sitated the  arrest  of  two  of  the  witnesses, 
who  were  found  guilty  and  condemned. 
His  pleadings  struck  the  court  and  the 
Jury.  One  of  them,  a  merchant,  the  next 
day  confided  to  Monsieur  Savaron  a  diffi- 
cult case,  which  he  won.  In  the  situation 
in  which  we  were  placed  by  the  impossi- 
bility of  Monsieur  Berryer's  coming  to 
Besancon,  Monsieur  de  Garcenault  ad- 
vised us  to  have  this  Monsieur  Albert 
Savaron,  and  predicted  our  success.  As 
soon  as  1  had  seen  him  and  heard  him,  I 
had  faith  in  him;  and  I  was  not  deceived." 

"Is  there  anj'thing extraordinary  about 
him,  then  ?"  inquired  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court. 

"Certainly,  madame,"  answered  the 
vicar-general. 

"Well,  then,  tell  us  all  about  it,"  said 
Madame  de  Watteville. 


246 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


"The  first  time  I  saw  him,"  said  the 
Abbe  de  Grancej',  "  he  received  me  in 
tlie  room  next  to  the  antechamber  (g-ood 
Monsieur  Galard's  old  salon),  which  he 
lias  had  painted  in  old  oak,  and  which  I 
found  entirely  covered  with  law-books, 
contained  in  bookcases  also  painted  like 
old  wood.  The  painting'  and  the  books 
are  the  only  luxuries  in  this  apartment, 
for  the  furniture  consists  of  a  bui^eau  of 
old  carved  wood,  six  old  tapestry  arm- 
chairs, Carmelite  colored  curtains  with 
green  borders  to  the  windows,  and  a 
g-reen  carpet  on  the  floor.  The  stove  of 
the  antechamber  also  warms  this  library. 
While  waiting  there  for  him,  I  did  not 
figure  to  mj'self  our  advocate  with  a 
youthful  mien.  This  singular  frame  is 
really  in  harmony  with  the  picture ;  for 
when  Monsieur  Savaron  came,  he  wore 
a  black  merino  dressing-g'own  tied  with 
a  girdle  of  red  cord,  red  slippers,  a  red 
flannel  waistcoat,  and  a  red  skull-cap. 

"  The  livery  of  the  devil  I  "  exclaimed 
Madame  de  Watteville. 

"Yes,"  said  the  abbe,  "but  a  superb 
head  :  black  hair,  already  mingled  with 
white — hair  like  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul 
have  in  our  pictures,  in  thick  and  glossy 
curls  as  stiff  as  horse-hair;  a  neck  as 
white  and  round  as  a  woman's ;  a  mag- 
nificent forehead,  divided  by  the  strong' 
furrow  which  great  projects,  great  ideas, 
and  deep  meditations  trace  on  the  brow 
of  great  men ;  an  olive  complexion  veined 
with  red  marks ;  a  square  nose,  eyes  of 
fire,  and  hollow  cheeks  marked  with  two 
long  Imes  full  of  sufferings  ;  a  mouth 
with  a  sardonic  smile,  and  a  small  chin, 
sharp  and  too  short;  crow's-feet  on  the 
temples  ;  sunken  eyes  rolling  in  their 
orbits  like  two  globes  of  fire  :  but,  in 
spite  of  all  these  indications  of  violent 
passions,  an  air  of  calm  and  profound 
resignation,  a  voice  of  penetrating  sweet- 
ness, and  which  surprised  me  in  court  by 
its  flexibility  —  the  true  orator's  voice, 
now  pure  and  measured,  now  insinuating, 
and  thundering  when  necessary,  next 
adapting  itself  to  sarcasm,  and  becoming 
then  cutting.  Monsieur  Albert  Savaron  is 
of  middle  height,  neither  stout  nor  thin. 
Finallj'-,  he  has  a  bishop's  hand.     The 


second  time  I  went  to  see  him,  he  received 
me  ill  his  room,  which  is  next  to  the  li- 
brary, and  smiled  at  m^-  astonishment  on 
seeing  a  shabby  wash-stand,  an  old  carpet, 
a  school-bo3''s  bedstead,  and  calico  cur- 
tains to  the  windows.  He  came  out  of 
his  cabinet,  into  Avhich  nobody  ever  pene- 
trates, Jerome  told  me,  who  never  enters 
it,  and  contented  himself  with  knocking 
at  tlie  door.  Monsieur  Savaron  himself 
locked  the  door  before  me.  The  third 
time  he  was  breakfasting  in  his  library, 
in  the  most  frugal  style ;  but  this  time, 
as  he  had  spent  the  night  in  examining 
our  papers,  as  I  was  with  our  lawyer,  as 
we  were  to  spend  a  long  time  together, 
and  dear  Monsieur  Girardet  is  verbose,  I 
was  able  to  study  this  stranger.  Cer- 
tainlj^,  he  is  no  ordinary  man.  There  is 
more  than  one  secret  behind  these  features 
at  once  terrible  and  gentle,  patient  and 
impatient,  full  and  hollow.  I  found  that 
he  stooped  slightly,  like  all  men  who  have 
something  heavy  to  carry." 

"Wh^'  has  this  eloquent  man  left 
Paris  ?  With  what  intentions  has  he 
come  to  Besancon  ?  Has  nobody  told 
him  how  little  chance  of  success  there 
is  for  strangers?  They  will  make  use 
of  him,  but  the  Bisontines  will  not  let 
him  make  use  of  them.  Why,  when  he 
had  come,  did  he  take  so  little  trouble 
that  it  required  the  caprice  of  the  first 
president  to  bring  him  into  notice?  "  said 
the  handsome  Madame  de  Chavoncourt. 

"After  having  closely  studied  this 
'noble  head,'"  resumed  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  giving  his  interrupter  a  sly 
look,  which  left  her  to  suppose  that  he 
did  not  tell  all  he  knew,  "  and  particu- 
larly after  having  heard  his  reply  this 
morning  to  one  of  the  eagles  of  the  Paris 
bar,  I  think  that  this  man  will  produce  a 
great  sensation  some  day." 

"  What  is  he  to  us  ?  Your  cause  is 
gained  and  you  have  paid  him,"  said 
Madame  de  Watteville,  observing  her 
daughter,  who,  ever  since  the  vicar-gen- 
eral had  been  speaking,  had  seemed  to 
hang  on  to  his  lips. 

The  conversation  took  another  turn,  and 
no  more  was  said  about  Albert  Savaron. 

The  portrait  sketched  by  the  most  able 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


247 


of  the  vicars-general  of  the  diocese  had  all 
the  atti'action  of  romance  for  Rosalie, 
because  it  really  contained  a  romance. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  she  encount- 
ered the  exceptional  and  the  marvelous, 
long-ed  for  by  all  youthful  imag-inations, 
and  irresistibly  attractive  to  the  lively 
curiosity  of  Rosalie's  age.  What  an 
ideal  being  was  this  Albert,  somber, 
suffering,  eloquent,  and  studious,  com- 
pared by  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  to 
this  great  chubby-cheeked  count,  burst- 
ing with  health,  playing  the  gallant, 
talking  about  elegance  in  the  face  of 
the  splendor  of  the  old  Counts  de  Rupt ! 
Amedee  onl3''  brought  her  quarrels  and 
scoldings ;  besides,  she  knew  him  only 
too  well,  and  this  Albert  Savaron  offered 
many  a  riddle  to  guess  at. 

'•'Albert  Savaron  de  Savarus,"  she  re- 
peated to  herself.  And  then  to  see  him,  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  him  !  It  was  the  desire 
of  a  young  girl  until  then  without  desires. 
She  revolved  in  her  heart,  in  her  imagina- 
tion, and  in  her  head,  the  minutest  expres- 
sions of  the  Abbe  de  Grancey — for  every 
word  had  struck  home.  "A  fine  fore- 
head ?  "  she  said  to  herself,  looking  at  the 
forehead  of  every  man  sitting  at  the  table. 
"1  don't  see  a  single  fine  one.  Monsieur 
de  Soulas's  is  too  prominent.  Monsieur 
de  Grancej^'s  is  fine ;  but  he  is  seventy  and 
has  no  hair — you  can't  tell  where  his  fore- 
head finishes." 

"What  is  the  matter,  Rosalie  ?  You 
are  not  eating." 

"I  am  not  hungiy,  mamma,"  said  she. 
"A  bishop's  hands?"  she  continued  to 
herself.  "  I  cannot  remember  our  hand- 
some archbishop's,  although  he  confirmed 
me."  At  length,  in  the  midst  of  her  wan- 
derings to  and  fro  in  the  labyrintli  of  her 
memory,  she  recollected,  shhiing  through 
the  trees  of  the  neighboring  gardens,  a 
lighted  window  which  she  had  seen  from 
her  bed  when  she  woke  by  chance  in  the 
night.  "  It  was  his  light,  then,"  she  said 
to  herself,  "  I  shall  be  able  to  see  him  !  I 
shall  see  him." 

'■■  Monsieur  de  Grancey,  is  the  chapter 
suit  quite  finished?"  said  Rosalie,  quite 
unconnectedl.v,  to  the  vicar-general  dur- 
ing a  moment  of  silence. 


Madame  de  Watteville  rapidly  ex- 
changed looks  with  the  vicar-general. 

"And  how  can  that  concern  you,  my 
dear  child  ? "  said  she  to  Rosalie,  with 
a  feigned  gentleness  that  rendered  her 
daughter  circumspect  for  the  rest  of  her 
days. 

"  They  can  appeal,  but  our  adversaries 
will  think  twice  about  that,"  answered 
the  abbe. 

"  I  should  never  have  believed  that 
Rosalie  could  be  thinking  about  a  law- 
suit all  dinner  time,"  said  Madame  de 
Watteville. 

"Nor  I  either,"  said  Rosalie  with  a 
laughable  air  of  abstraction.  "  But  Mon- 
sieur de  Grancey'  was  so  absorbed  in  it 
that  I  became  interested." 

The\'  rose  from  table,  and  the  company- 
returned  to  the  salon.  For  the  whole 
of  the  evening,  Rosalie  listened  to  hear 
whether  they  would  talk  about  Albert 
Savaron  ;  but  beyond  the  congratulations 
addressed  by  each  new-comer  to  the  abbe 
on  the  gain  of  the  cause,  and  with  which 
no  one  mingled  the  praises  of  the  counsel, 
he  was  not  mentioned. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  awaited  the 
night  with  impatience  ;  she  had  promised 
herself  to  get  up  between  two  and  three 
in  the  morning,  to  look  at  the  windows 
of  Albert's  study.  When  this  hour  was 
come,  she  felt  almost  a  pleasure  in  con- 
templating the  gleam  thrown  by  the 
advocate's  candles  through  the  almost 
leafless  trees.  By  the  aid  of  the  excellent 
sight  a  young  girl  always  possesses,  and 
which  curiosit}-  seems  to  extend,  she  saw 
Albert  writing.  She  thought  she  could 
distinguish  the  color  of  the  furniture, 
which  seemed  to  be  red.  The  chimney 
sent  up  over  the  roof  a  thick  column  of 
smoke. 

"  While  all  the  world  sleeps,  he  watches 
— like  God  !  "  she  said  to  herself. 

The  education  of  girls  comprises  prob- 
lems so  grave,  for  the  future  of  a  nation 
depends  on  its  mothei-s,  that  for  a  long 
while  the  University  of  France  has  under- 
taken the  task  of  taking  no  notice  of  them. 
Here  is  one  of  these  problems  :  Ought  we 
to  enlighten  young  girls?  Ought  we  to 
restrict  their   understanding?    The    i-e- 


248 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


ligious  sj'stem  is,  of  course,  restrictive. 
If  you  enligliten  them,  you  make  demons 
of  them  prematurely;  if  3-00  prevent  them 
from  ihinking-,  you  arrive  at  the  sudden 
explosion  so  well  painted  in  the  character 
of  Agnes  by  Moliere,  and  you  put  this 
pent-up  intelligence,  so  fresh  and  so  per- 
spicacious, rapid  and  consistent  as  a 
sa%'age,  at  the  mercj"^  of  an  accident — a 
fatal  crisis  brought  about  in  the  case  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  by  the  im- 
prudent sketch  indulged  in  at  table  by  one 
of  the  most  prudent  abbes  of  the  prudent 
chapter  of  Besancon. 

The  next  morning,  while  dressing.  Mad- 
emoiselle de  Watteville  necessarily  saw 
Albert  Savaron  walking  in  the  garden 
adjoining  that  of  the  Hotel  de  Rupt. 

"What  would  have  become  of  me," 
thought  she,  "if  he  had  lived  an,ywhere 
else  ?  Here  I  can  at  least  see  him.  What 
is  he  thinking  about  ?  " 

After  having  seen  at  a  distance  this 
extraordmarj'  man,  the  only  one  whose 
physiognomy  stood  out  vigorously  from 
the  mass  of  Bisontine  faces  hitherto  no- 
ticed, Rosalie  jumped  rapidly  to  the  idea 
of  penetrating  into  his  home  life,  of  learn- 
ing the  reason  of  so  much  mystery,  of 
hearing  this  eloquent  voice,  and  obtaining 
a  glance  from  those  splendid  eyes.  She 
wished  to  do  all  this — but  how  ? 

The  whole  day  long,  she  stitched  away 
at  her  embroideiy  with  the  obtuse  atten- 
tion of  a  young  girl  who  seems,  like  Agnes, 
to  be  thinking  about  nothing,  but  who  is 
reflecting  on  everj'thing  so  carefully  that 
her  stratagems  are  infallible.  From  this 
profound  meditation,  there  resulted  in 
Rosalie  a  desire  to  go  to  confession.  The 
next  morning,  after  mass,  she  had  a  little 
conference  at  St.  Pierre  with  the  Abbe 
Giroud,  and  wheedled  him  so  well  that 
the  confession  was  appointed  for  Sunday 
morning,  at  half-past  seven,  before  the 
eight  o'clock  mass.  She  told  a  dozen  lies 
to  be  able  to  be  in  the  church,  just  once, 
at  the  time  the  barrister  came  to  hear 
mass.  Finally,  she  was  taken  with  an 
excessive  affection  for  her  father;  she 
went  to  see  him  in  his  workshop,  and 
asked  him  a  thousand  questions  about  the 
art  of  turning,  in  order  to  get  to  advise 


her  father  to  turn  something  large — some 
coluums.  After  having  got  her  fathei'  on 
to  spiral  columns,  one  of  the  difficulties  of 
the  turner's  art,  she  advised  him  to  take 
advantage  of  a  large  heap  of  stones, 
which  happened  to  be  in  the  middle  of  the 
garden,  to  have  a  grotto  buUt,  on  which 
he  could  place  a  little  temple  in  the  style 
of  a  Belvedere,  for  which  his  spiral  col- 
umns could  be  made  use  of,  and  would 
shine  in  the  eyes  of  all  his  friends. 

In  the  midst  of  the  joy  this  enterprise 
caused  this  poor  man  without  an  occupa- 
tion, Rosalie  said,  embracing  him,  "Mind 
you  don't  tell  mamma  who  you  got  the 
idea  from  ;  she  would  scold  me." 

"You  need  not  fear,"  replied  Monsieur 
de  Watteville,  who  groaned  under  the 
oppression  of  the  terrible  daughter  of  the 
De  Rupts  quite  as  much  as  his  daughter. 

And  so  Rosalie  attained  the  certainty 
of  soon  seeing  erected  a  charming  observ- 
atoiy,  'from  which  the  eye  could  jDlunge 
into  the  cabinet  of  the  barrister.  And 
there  are  men  for  whom  young  girls  per- 
form similar  feats  of  diplomacy,  and  who, 
for  the  most  part,  like  Albert  Savaron, 
know  nothing  about  them. 

The  Sundaj',  so  impatiently  awaited, 
arrived,  and  the  toilet  of  Rosalie  was 
performed  with  a  care  which  drew  a  smOe 
from  Mariette,  the  maid  of  Madame  and 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville. 

"  This  is  the  first  time  I  have  seen  made- 
moiselle so  particular,"  said  Mariette. 

"You  make  me  think,"  said  Rosalie, 
giving  Mariette  a  look  which  planted 
poppies  on  the  waiting-maid's  cheeks, 
"  that  there  are  days  on  which  you  also 
are  more  particular  than  on  others." 

On  leaving  the  portico,  in  crossing  the 
courtyard,  in  passing  through  the  gate- 
way, in  walking  through  tlie  street,  Ros- 
alie's heart  beat  as  if  with  the  presenti- 
ment of  a  great  event.  She  had  not 
Icnown  until  then  what  it  was  to  walk  in 
the  streets.  For  a  moment  she  had  be- 
lieved her  mother  would  read  her  projects 
on  her  brow,  and  forbid  her  going  to  con- 
fession. She  felt  new  blood  in  her  feet ; 
she  raised  them  as  if  she  were  walkmg  on 
fire  !  Of  course,  she  had  made  an  ap- 
pointment for  a  quarter-past  eight  with 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


249 


her  confessor,  and  told  her  mother  eight, 
in  order  to  be  able  to  wait  about  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  for  Albert.  She  g-ot  to  the 
church  before  mass,  and,  after  saying  a 
short  praj^er,  she  went  to  see  whether  the 
Abbe  Giroud  was  in  his  confessional, 
simplj'  to  be  able  to  look  about,  and  man- 
aged to  place  herself  where  she  could  see 
Albert  the  moment  he  entered  the  church. 

A  man  must  be  atrociously  ugly  not  to 
appear  handsome  in  the  disposition  to 
which  curiosity  had  brought  Mademoi- 
selle de  Watteville.  Now,  Albert  Sav- 
aron,  already  very  remarkable,  made 
all  the  more  impression  on  Rosalie  that 
his  conduct,  his  demeanor,  everj'thing, 
even  to  his  dress,  had  that  indefinable 
something  which  can  only  be  explained 
by  the  word  mystery.  He  entered.  The 
church,  until  then  somber,  appeared  to 
Rosalie  as  if  illuminated.  Tlic  young  girl 
was  charmed  bj'  the  slow  and  almost 
solemn  gait  of  the  people  who  carry  a 
world  on  their  shoulders,  and  Avhose  pro- 
found gaze  and  gestures  agree  in  express- 
ing a  desolating  or  a  dominating  idea. 
Rosalie  understood  then  the  words  of  the 
vicar-general  to  their  full  extent.  Yes, 
these  yellowish-brown  eyes,  shot  with 
threads  of  gold,  veiled  an  ardor  which 
betrayed  itself  by  sudden  jets.  Rosalie, 
with  an  imprudence  which  Mariette  re- 
marked, placed  herself  in  the  path  of 
the  advocate,  so  as  to  exchange  a  glance 
with  him ;  and  this  courted  glance 
changed  her  blood,  for  her  blood  seethed 
and  boiled  as  if  its  heat  had  been  doubled. 
As  soon  as  Albert  had  taken  his  seat. 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had  quickly 
chosen  her  place,  so  as  to  see  him  per- 
fectly during  all  the  time  the  Abbe  Giroud 
left  her.  When  Mariette  said,  "  There  is 
Monsieur  Giroud,"  it  seemed  to  Rosalie 
that  this  time  had  not  been  more  than  a 
few  minutes.  When  she  came  out  of  the 
confessional,  the  mass  was  finished ;  Al- 
bert had  left  the  church. 

"The  vicar-general  is  right,"  thought 
she:  "he  suffers  !  Why  has  this  eagle, 
for  he  has  the  eyes  of  an  eagle,  swooped 
down  upon  Besaucon  !  Oh,  I  must  know 
everything;  but  how  ?  " 

Under  the  Arc  of  this  new  desire,  Rosalie 


put  ill  the  stitches  of  her  tapestry  work 
with  admirable  nicety,  and  these  were  her 
meditations  beneath  an  air  of  candor  which 
simulated  simplicity  well  enough  to  deceive 
Madame  de  Watteville. 

Since  the  Sunday  when  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  had  received  this  glance,  or, 
if  you  will,  this  "baptism  of  fire" — Na- 
poleon's magnificent  expression,  which 
may  be  applied  to  love — she  urged  on  the 
affair  of  the  Belvedere  hotly. 

"Mamma,"  said  she,  when  once  there 
were  two  columns  turned,  "  my  father 
has  got  a  singular  idea  in  his  head.  He 
is  turning  columns  for  a  Belvedere,  which 
he  intends  to  have  erected  by  making  use 
of  the  heap  of  stones  which  is  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  garden.  Do  you  approve  of  it? 
It  seems  to  me  that — " 

"  I  approve  of  everything  j'our  father 
does,"  replied  Madame  de  AVatteville 
sharply,  "  and  it  is  the  duty  of  a  wife  to 
submit  to  her  husband,  even  if  she  does 
not  approve  of  his  ideas.  Why  should  I 
oppose  a  thing,  which  is  indifferent  in 
itself,  from  the  moment  it  amuses  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville  ?  " 

"But  from  there  we  shall  see  into  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas's  house,  and  Monsieur 
de  Soulas  will  see  us  when  we  are  there. 
Perhaps  people  will  talk — " 

"Do  you  aspire  to  manage  your  par- 
ents, RosaUe,  and  to  know  more  than 
they  about  life  and  proprietj-  ?  " 

"  I  say  no  more,  mamma.  And,  be- 
sides, my  father  says  the  grotto  will  make 
a  room  whore  we  can  be  cool  and  have 
our  colTce." 

"  Your  father  has  had  excellent  ideas," 
replied  Madame  de  Watteville,  who  wanted 
to  go  and  see  the  colunms. 

She  gave  her  approbation  to  the  baron's 
project,  and  pointed  out,  for  the  erection 
of  the  building,  a  place  at  the  end  of  the 
garden,  where  you  could  not  be  seen  by 
Monsieur  de  Soulas,  but  could  see  into 
Monsieur  Albert  Savaron's  admirably 
well.  A  builder  was  sent  for.  who  under- 
took to  make  a  grotto,  with  a  path  of 
three  feet  wide  leading  to  its  summit,  and 
periwinkles,  iris,  vibnriuim.  ivy,  honey- 
suckle, and  ivy  grape  growing  in  the  rock- 
work.    The  baroness  conceived  the  idea 


250 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


of  having  the  interior  of  the  grotto  deco- 
rated with  rustic  woodwork,  then  all  the 
fashion  for  flower-stands,  and  putting  up 
a  looking-glass  at  the  end,  with  a  covered 
divan  and  a  checkered  bark  table.  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  proposed  to  have  the  floor 
made  of  asphalte.  Rosalie  thought  of 
having  a  rustic  wood  chandelier  suspended 
from  the  roof. 

'•  The  Wattevilles  are  liaving  some- 
thing charming  made  in  their  garden," 
they  said  in  Besancon. 

"  They  are  rich.  They  can  well  spend 
a  thousand  crowns  on  a  fancy." 

"  A  thousand  crowns !  "  exclaimed  Ma- 
dame de  Chavoncourt. 

"Yes,  a  thousand  crownis,"  said  young 
Monsieur  de  Soulas.  "They  have  got  a 
man  from  Paris  to  rusticate  the  interior ; 
but  it  will  be  very  pretty.  Monsieur  de 
WattevUle  himself  is  making  the  chande- 
lier ;  he  is  carving  the  wood." 

"  Thej'  say  Berquet  is  going  to  build  a 
cellar,"  said  an  abbe. 

"No,"  replied  j^oung  Monsieur  de 
Soulas.  "  He  is  laying  the  foundation 
of  the  work  in  cement,  so  that  there  may 
be  no  dampness." 

"You  know  the  least  thing  that  goes 
on  in  the  house,"  said  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court angrily,  looking  at  one  of  her  great 
girls,  ready  to  be  married  a  yenv  ago. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  who  ex- 
perienced a  feeling  of  pride  in  thinking 
of  the  success  of  her  Belvedere,  recog- 
nized in  herself  an  eminent  superiority  to 
all  that  surrounded  her.  Nobody  had 
imagined  that  a  young  girl,  considered 
dull  and  silh",  had  simply  wanted  to  see 
a  little  more  closely  into  the  cabinet  of 
the  advocate  Savaron. 

The  startling  speech  of  Albert  Savaron 
for  the  chapter  of  the  cathedral  was  all 
the  more  promptly  forgotten  that  it 
aroused  the  Qxwy  of  the  bar.  Besides, 
faithful  to  his  retirement,  Savaron  did 
not  show  himself  anj-where.  Havang  no 
touters  and  seeing  nobody,  he  increased 
the  chances  of  oblivion,  already  pretty 
abundant  for  a  stranger  in  a  town  like 
Besancon.  However,  he  spoke  three  times 
in  the  Tribunal  of  Commerce,  in  three 
complicated  cases  which  would  have  to  go 


to  the  court.  He  thus  got  as  clients  four 
of  the  largest  merchants  of  the  town, 
who  recognized  in  him  so  much  sense,  and 
what  the  provinces  call  good  judgment, 
that  they  gave  him  their  business.  The 
daj'  that  the  house  of  Watteville  inau- 
gurated their  Belvedere,  Savaron  also 
erected  his  monument.  Thanks  to  the 
secret  relations  which  he  had  established 
with  the  high  commerce  of  Besancon,  he 
founded  a  fortnightlj'  review,  called  the 
"Revue  de  TEst,"  by  means  of  forty  shares 
of  five  hundred  francs  each,  placed  in  the 
hands  of  his  first  ten  clients,  whom  he 
impressed  with  the  necessity  of  promot- 
ing the  destinj^  of  Besancon,  the  town 
which  ought  to  concentrate  the  traffic 
between  Mulhouse  and  Lj'on,  the  capital 
point  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Rhone. 

To  compete  with  Strasbourg,  ought  not 
Besancon  to  be  a  center  of  enlightenment 
as  well  as  a  center  of  commerce  ?  The 
elevated  questions  relatmg  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  East  could  only  be  discussed  in 
a  "  Review."  What  a  triumph  to  snatch 
from  Strasbourg  and  Dijon  their  literary 
mfluence  and  contend  with  Parisian  cen- 
tralization !  These  considerations,  put 
forward  by  Albert,  were  repeated  b^'  the 
ten  merchants,  who  took  to  themselves 
the  credit  of  them. 

The  barrister  Savaron  did  not  commit 
the  blunder  of  using  his  own  name.  He 
left  the  financial  direction  to  his  first 
client.  Monsieur  Boucher,  related  through 
his  wife  to  one  of  the  largest  publishers 
of  important  ecclesiastical  works ;  but  he 
reserved  to  himself  the  editorshii^,  with 
a  share,  as  the  founder,  in  the  profits. 
Commerce  made  an  appeal  to  Dole,  to 
Dijon,  to  Salins,  to  Neufchatel,  the  Jura, 
Bourg,  Nantua,  Lons-le-Saulnier.  They 
invited  assistance  from  the  intelligence 
and  the  efforts  of  all  studious  men  in  the 
three  provinces  of  Bugey,  Bresse,  and  the 
Comte.  Thanks  to  the  relations  of  com- 
merce and  confraternity,  a  hundred  and 
fiftj'^  subscriptions  were  taken  up,  and  in 
consideration  of  the  cheapness.  The  "  Re- 
view "  cost  eight  francs  a  quarter.  To 
avoid  wounding  provincial  self-love,  the 
barrister  had  the  good  sense  to  make 
the  literarv  direction  of  this  "Review" 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


251 


the  object  of  the  desires  of  the  eldest  son 
of  Monsieur  Boucher,  a  young'  man  of 
two  and  twenty,  very  eager  for  fame,  to 
whom  the  snares  and  troubles  of  literary 
management  were  entii'ely  unkno\vn.  Al- 
bert kept  the  upper  hand  in  secret,  and 
made  Alfred  his  lieutenant.  Alfred  was 
the  only  person  in  Besancon  with  whom 
the  king  of  the  bar  became  familiar.  Al- 
fred came  to  confer  with  Albert  of  a 
morning  in  the  garden  on  the  contents 
of  the  number.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  first  number  contained  a  meditation 
by  Alfred,  ^hich  was  approved  of  by 
Savaron.  In  his  conversation  with  Al- 
fred, Albert  allowed  great  ideas  to  escape 
him,  and  the  subjects  of  articles  of  which 
young  Boucher  availed  himself;  so  that 
the  merchant's  son  thought  he  was  tak- 
ing advantage  of  the  great  man  !  Albert 
was  a  man  of  genius,  a  profound  politi- 
cian, to  Alfred.  The  merchants,  enchant- 
ed with  the  success  of  the  '■  Review," 
only  had  to  pay  up  three-tenths  of  their 
shares.  Two  hundred  subscriptions  moi'e, 
and  the  "Review"  would  pay  Ave  per 
cent  dividend  to  its  shareholders,  the 
editing  not  being  paid  for.  The  editing 
was  beyond  price. 

At  tlie  third  number,  the  "  Review " 
had  obtained  the  exchange  with  all  the 
papers  in  France,  which  Albert  i-ead  at 
home.  This  third  number  contained  a 
tale  signed  A.  S.,  and  attributed  to  the 
famous  advocate.  Xotwithstauding  the 
sUght  attention  the  high  society  of 
Besancon  accorded  to  the  "  Review," 
which  was  accused  of  Liberalism,  this 
novel,  the  first  hatched  in  the  Comte, 
was  discussed  at  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court's  in  the   middle   of  the  winter. 

'•'Father,"  said  Rosalie,  "there  is  a 
"  Review  "  published  in  Besancon.  You 
ought  to  subscribe  to  it.  And  keep  it  in 
your  room,  for  mamma  would  not  let  me 
read  it ;  but  you  will  lend  it  to  me." 

Eager  to  obey  his  dear  Rosalie,  who  for 
five  months  had  given  him  so  many  proofs 
of  filial  affection.  Monsieur  de  Wattoville 
went  himself  to  pay  a  year's  subscription 
to  the  "  Rc\-iie  de  I'Est,"  and  lent  the  four 
numbers  which  had  already  appeared  to 
his  daughter.     During  the  night  Rosalie 


was  able  to  devour  this  tale,  the  first  she 
had  ever  read  in  her  life.  But,  then,  she 
had  only  begun  to  live  for  two  months  I 
Accordingly,  tlie  effect  produced  on  her 
by  this  work  must  not  be  judged  by  ordi- 
nary data.  Without  prejudging  the  more 
or  less  of  merit  in  this  composition,  due 
to  a  Parisian  who  brought  into  the  prov- 
ince the  stjie — the  brilliance,  if  you  will 
— of  the  new  school  of  literature,  it  could 
not  help  being  a  chef-d'oeuvre  to  a  young 
girl  devoting  her  virgin  intelligence  and 
her  pure  heart  to  a  first  work  of  this  nat- 
ure. Besides,  from  what  she  had  heard 
of  it,  Rosalie  had  conceived  by  intuition 
an  idea  which  singularly  heightened  the 
value  of  this  novel.  She  hoped  to  find  in 
it  the  sentiments,  and  perhaps  something 
of  the  life,  of  Albert.  From  the  first 
pages  this  opinion  of  hers  acquired  so 
much  consistency  that,  after  having  fin- 
ished this  fragment,  she  felt  certain  she 
did  not  deceive  herself. 

Here,  then,  is  this  narrative,  in  which, 
according  to  the  critics  of  the  Chavon- 
court  circle,  Albert  had  imitated  certain 
modern  writers  who,  for  want  of  inven- 
tion, relate  their  own  joys  and  their  own 
griefs,  or  the  mysterious  events  of  their 
existence. 

LOVE'S  AMBITION. 

"  In  1823,  two  young  men,  who  had 
arranged  to  make  the  tour  of  Switzer- 
land, started  from  Lucerne  one  fine 
morning  in  Jul}',  in  a  boat  rowed  bj* 
three  men.  They  were  going  to  Fluelen, 
proposing  to  stop  at  all  the  celebrated 
spots  on  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Cantons. 

"The  landscapes  which  border  the 
water  from  Lucerne  to  Fluelen  present 
all  the  combinatiotis  that  the  most  exact- 
ing imagination  can  demand  from  mount- 
ains and  rivers,  from  lakes  and  rocks, 
from  streams  and  verdure,  from  ti-ees 
and  torrents.  You  have,  by  turns,  aus- 
tere solitudes  and  graceful  promenades, 
smiling  and  coquettish  plains,  forests 
placed  like  plumes  on  the  perpendicular 
granite,  cool  and  solitary  bays  which 
gradually  disclose  themselves,  valleys 
whose  treasures  appear  embellished  by  a 
dreamy  distance. 


252 


THE    HUMAX     COMEDY. 


"  In  passing  before  the  cliarining  little 
town  of  Gersau,  one  of  the  two  friends 
made  a  prolonged  observation  of  a 
wooden  house,  which  seemed  to  have 
been  recently  built,  surrounded  by  a  pal- 
ing, situated  on  a  promontory,  and  almost 
bathed  by  the  water.  As  the  boat  passed 
befoi-e  it,  a  woman's  head  appeared  from 
the  back  of  the  rooni  situated  on  the  top 
floor  of  this  house,  to  observe  the  effect  of 
the  boat  on  the  lake.  One  of  the  young 
men  caught  the  glance  xavy  indilferently 
thrown  bj'^  the  unknown. 

'•'Let  us  stop  here,'  said  he  to  his 
friend.  '  We  were  going  to  make  Lu- 
cerne our  headquarters  for  exploring 
Switzerland.  You  will  not  object,  Leo- 
pold, to  my  changing  my  mind  and  stay 
ing  here  in  charge  of  the  baggage  ?  You 
will  then  be  able  to  do  just  as  you  like. 
As  for  me,  my  voyage  is  finished.  Boat- 
men, put  back  and  land  us  at  this  village; 
we  will  breakfast  there.  I  will  go  and 
fetch  all  our  luggage  from  Lucerne  ;  and 
you  will  know,  before  leaving  here,  which 
house  I  am  lodging  in,  so  as  to  be  able  to 
find  me  on  your  return." 

"  'Here,  or  at  Lucerne,'  said  Ltopold  ; 
'  it  does  not  matter  enough  for  me  to  pre- 
vent your  obeying  a  caprice.' 

' '  These  two  young  men  were  two  friends 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  They  were 
the  same  age,  had  been  to  the  same  school, 
and,  after  having  finished  the  study  of 
the  law,  they  were  employing  the  vaca- 
tion for  the  classic  tour  of  Switzerland. 
In  accordance  with  the  paternal  will, 
Leopold  was  destined  to  the  iirofession  of 
a  notary  in  Paris.  His  upright  mind,  his 
gentleness,  the  tranquillitj^  of  his  char- 
acter, and  his  intellect,  guaranteed  his 
docility.  Leopold  saw  himself  a  notary 
at  Paris ;  his  life  was  spread  out  before 
him  like  one  of  those  high-roads  which 
traverse  the  plains  of  France.  He  em- 
braced it  to  its  fullest  extent  with  a  resig- 
nation full  of  philosophy. 

"  The  character  of  his  companion,  wliom 
we  will  call  Rodolphe,  offered  a  contrast 
to  his,  whose  antagonism  had,  no  doubt, 
had  the  effect  of  drawing  closer  the  ties 
which  united  them.  Rodolphe  was  the 
natural  son  of  a  great  nobleman,  who 


was  surprised  \)y  a  premature  death  with- 
out having  been  able  to  take  measures  to 
provide  for  a  Avoman  tenderly  beloved, 
and  for  Rodolphe.  Thus  ruined  by  a 
stroke  of  fate,  the  mother  of  Rodolphe 
had  recourse  to  an  heroic  expedient.  She 
sold  all  that  she  possessed  through  the 
munificence  of  the  father  of  her  child, 
made  up  a  sum  of  a  hiuidred  and  odd 
thousand  francs,  invested  it  in  an  annuity 
on  her  own  life  at  a  high  rate,  and  pro- 
cured herself  in  this  way  an  income  of 
about  fifteen  thousand  francs,  making 
resolution  to  devote  it  all  to  the  education 
of  her  son,  in  order  to  endow  him  witli 
the  personal  advantages  most  likely  to 
insure  his  fortune,  and  to  lay  by  a  capital 
for  him,  by  dint  of  economy,  by  the  time 
he  had  attained  his  majority'.  It  was 
bold^  it  was  relying  on  her  own  life  ;  but 
without  this  boldness  it  would,  no  doubt, 
have  been  impossible  for  this  good  mother 
to  live  and  ijroperly  educate  her  child — 
her  only  hope,  her  future,  and  the  sole 
source  of  her  joys.  The  issue  of  one  of 
the  most  charming  Parisians  and  a  man 
remarkable  among  the  aristocracy  of 
Brabant,  the  fruit  of  an  equal  and  mutual 
passion,  Rodolphe  was  afflicted  with  an 
excessive  sensibility.  From  his  infancy 
he  had  manifested  the  greatest  ardor  in 
everj^thing.  In  him,  desire  became  a 
superior  force  and  the  mainspring  of  the 
whole  being,  the  stimulant  of  the  imagina- 
tion, the  cause  of  his  actions. 

In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  an  intelligent 
mother,  who  was  alarmed  when  she  per- 
ceived such  a  predisposition,  Rodolphe 
desired  as  a  poet  imagines,  as  a  savant 
calculates,  as  a  painter  sketches,  as  a 
musician  composes  melodies.  Tender  as 
his  mother,  he  rushed  with  unheard-of 
violence  and  imagination  toward  the  ob- 
ject desired ;  he  devoured  time.  While 
dreaming  of  the  accomplishment  of  his 
projects,  he  always  passed  over  the  means 
of  execution.  '  When  my  son  has  chil- 
dren,' said  the  mother,  'he  will  want 
them  full  grown  at  once.'  This  noble  ai*- 
dor,  properly  directed,  enabled  Rodolphe 
to  make  a  brilliant  scholar,  and  to  be- 
come what  the  English  call  a  perfect  gen- 
tleman.    His  mother  was  proud  of  him. 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


253 


while  always  dreading  some  catastrophe 
if  ever  a  passion  took  possession  of  his 
heart,  at  once  so  tender  and  so  sensitive,  so 
violent  and  so  good.  Therefore,  this  pru- 
dent woman  had  encourag-ed  the  friend- 
ship which  bound  Leopold  to  Rodolphe 
and  Rodolphe  to  Leopold,  seeing"  in  the 
cool  and  devoted  notary  a  guardian,  a 
confidant,  who  might  replace  her  to  a 
certain  point  with  Rodolphe,  if  she  should 
unhappily  be  taken  from  him.  Still  hand- 
some at  fortj'-thi'ee,  the  mother  of  Ro- 
dolphe had  inspired  Leopold  with  the 
most  lively  affection.  This  circumstance 
rendered  the  j'oung  men  still  more  inti- 
mate. 

"  So  Leopold,  who  knew  Rodolphe  well, 
was  not  surprised  to  see  him  stopping  at 
a  village  and  giving  up  the  projected  ex- 
cursion to  Saint  Gothai-d,  for  the  sake  of 
a  glance  cast  from  the  top  of  a  house. 
While  their  breakfast  was  being  prepared 
at  the  Swan  Inn,  the  two  friends  strolled 
through  the  village,  and  arrived  at  the 
part  nearest  to  the  charming  new  house, 
where,  while  looking  about  and  chatting 
with  the  inhabitants,  Rodolphe  discovered 
a  family  of  small  tradespeople  disposed  to 
take  him  as  a  boarder,  according  to  the 
general  custom  in  Switzerland.  They 
offered  him  a  room  with  a  view  of  the 
lake  and  the  mountains,  and  from  which 
you  could  catch  the  magnificent  view  of 
one  of  those  prodigious  windings  which 
recommend  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Can- 
tons to  the  admiration  of  tourists.  This 
house  was  separated,  by  an  open  space 
and  a  small  harbor,  from  the  new  house 
in  which  Rodolphe  had  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  face  of  his  fair  unknown.  For  a 
hundred  francs. a  month,  Rodolphe  was 
supplied  with  all  the  necessaries  of  life. 
But,  in  consideration  of  the  expenses  to 
which  the  Stopfers  would  be  put,  Ihey  re- 
quired the  pajmient  of  three  months  in 
advance.  You  have  only  got  to  rub  a 
Swiss,  and  the  usurer  appears. 

After  breakfast  Rodolphe  installed  him- 
self on  the  spot,  by  putting  into  his  room 
all  the  things  he  had  brought  for  his  ex- 
cursion to  St.  Gothard,  and  looked  down 
on  the  departure  of  Leopold,  who,  in  the 
spirit  of  order,  was  going  to  perform  the 


excursion  on  Rodolphe's  account  and  his 
own.  When  Rodolphe,  seated  on  a  rock 
fallen  on  the  shore,  could  no  longer  see 
Leopold's  boat,  he  examined,  but  from 
below,  the  new  house,  hoping  to  perceive 
the  unknown.  Alas !  he  went  in  again 
without  the  house  having  shown  a  sign 
of  life.  At  the  dinner  offered  him  by 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Stopfer,  retired 
coopers,  he  questioned  them  about  the 
neighborhood,  and  in  the  end  learned  all 
he  wanted  to  know  about  the  unknown, 
thanks  to  the  chattering  of  his  hosts,  who 
emptied  the  scandal-bag  without  much 
pressing. 

The  unknown  was  called  Fanny  Love- 
lace. This  name,  which  is  pronoimced 
Loveless,  belongs  to  several  old  English 
families ;  but  Richardson  has  created  one 
whose  celebrity  eclipses  all  the  others.  Miss 
Lovelace  had  come  to  reside  on  the  lake 
for  her  father's  health,  the  doctors  hav- 
ing ordered  him  the  air  of  the  canton  of 
Lucerne.  These  two  English  people,  who 
had  arrived  with  no  other  servant  but  a 
little  girl  of  fourteen,  very  much  attached 
to  Miss  Fanny — a  little  dumb  girl  who 
waited  on  her  very  cleverly — had  made 
arrangements,  before  the  last  winter,  with 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Bergmann,  for- 
merly head  gardenei's  to  his  excellency 
Count  Borromeo  at  Isola  Bella  and  Isola 
Madre,  on  the  Lago  Maggiore. 

"These  Swiss,  worth  about  a  thousand 
crowns  a  year,  let  the  upper  storj'  of  their 
house  to  the  Lovelaces  at  two  hundred 
francs  a  year  for  three  years.  Old  Love- 
lace, an  old  man  of  ninety,  very  mfirm, 
and  too  poor  to  afford  certain  expenses, 
seldom  went  out.  His  daughter,  to  sup- 
port him,  translated  English  books,  and, 
they  said,  wrote  books  hei-self .  Thus,  the 
Lovelaces  did  not  venture  either  to  hire 
boats  to  go  on  the  lake,  or  horses,  or 
guides  to  explore  the  neighborhood.  A 
poverty  which  imposed  such  privations 
excited  the  compassion  of  the  Swiss,  all 
the  more  that  they  lost  an  opportunity  of 
profit.  The  cook  of  the  house  provided 
for  the  three  English  at  the  rate  of  a  hun- 
dred francs  a  month,  everj-thing  included. 
But  it  was  believed  in  Gersau  that  the 
former  gardeners,   despite  their  preten- 


254 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


sions  to  gentility,  made  use  of  the  name 
of  their  cook  to  realize  the  profits  of  this 
agreement.  The  Bcrgmanns  had  con- 
structed admirable  gardens  and  a  mag- 
nificent hothouse  around  their  habitation. 
The  flowers,  the  fruits,  and  the  botanic 
rareties  of  this  habitation  had  determined 
tlie  young  miss  to  choose  it  on  her  pass- 
age through  Gersau.  They  put  down  at 
nineteen  the  age  of  Miss  Fanny,  who,  be- 
ing the  old  man's  last  child,  would  nat- 
urally be  idolized  by  him.  Only  two 
months  ago,  she  had  procured  a  piano  on 
hire  which  came  from  Lucerne,  for  she 
appeared  music  mad. 

"'She  is  fond  of  flowers  and  music,' 
thought  Rodolphe,  'and  she  is  unmar- 
ried ?    What  good  fortune  ! ' 

"The  next  day,  Rodolphe  sent  to  ask 
permission  to  visit  the  hothouses  and 
gardens,  which  were  beginning  to  enjoy  a 
certain  celebrity.  This  permission  was 
not  granted  immediately.  These  retired 
gardeners  asked,  for  a  wonder,  to  see  Ro- 
dolphe's  passport,  and  he  sent  it  imme- 
diately. The  passport  was  not  returned 
until  the  next  day,  by  the  cook,  who 
communicated  to  him  that  her  master 
would  be  pleased  to  show  him  his  es- 
tablishment. 

"  Rodolphe  did  not  enter  the  Berg- 
manns'  without  a  certain  shock,  experi- 
enced onl3'  by  people  of  strong  emotions, 
and  who  display  in  a  moment  as  much 
passion  as  some  men  expend  in  their  whole 
life.  Dressed  with  care  to  please  the  old 
gardeners  of  the  Borromean  isles — for  he 
saw  in  them  the  guardians  of  his  treasure 
— he  went  through  the  gardens,  looking 
from  time  to  time  at  the  house,  but  with 
prudence.  The  two  old  proprietors  mani- 
fested a  very  visible  mistrust.  But  his 
attention  was  soon  excited  by  the  little 
English  dumb  girl,  in  whom  his  sagacity, 
though  still  yoimg,  recognized  a  daughter 
of  Africa,  or  at  least  a  Sicilian.  This 
young  girl  had  the  golden  tint  of  an 
Havanna  cigar,  eyes  of  fire,  Armenian 
eyelids,  eyelashes  of  an  anti  -  Britannic 
length,  hair  more  than  black,  and,  under 
this  almost  olive  skin,  nerves  of  remark- 
able strength  and  febrile  vivacitj'.  She 
cast  on  Rodolphe  searching  looks  of  in- 


credible boldness,  and  followed  his  slight- 
est movements. 

"'To  whom  does  this  little  Moor  be- 
long ?  '  said  he  to  the  respectable  Madame 
Bergmann. 

"'To  the  English  people,"  answered 
Monsieur  Bergmann. 

" '  She  certainly  was  not  born  in  En- 
gland ! ' 

"  '  Perhaps  the^'have  brought  her  from 
India,'  replied  Madame  Bergmann. 

"'I  have  been  told  that  young  Miss 
Lovelace  is  fond  of  music.  I  should  be 
delighted  if,  during  my  stay  on  the  lake, 
to  which  I  am  condemned  by  the  doctor's 
orders,  she  would  allow  me  to  practice 
with  her.' 

"  '  They  do  not  see  and  do  not  wish  to 
see  anybody,'  said  the  old  gardener. 

"  Rodolphe  bit  his  lips,  and  went  away 
without  having  been  invited  to  enter  the 
house,  nor  taken  to  that  part  of  the  gar- 
den situated  between  the  house  front  and 
the  edge  of  the  promontor3\  On  this  side 
of  the  house,  above  the  first  story,  there 
was  a  wooden  gallery,  covered  by  the 
roof,  which  had  an  excessive  projection, 
like  the  roof  of  a  chalet,  and  went  all 
round  the  four  sides  of  the  building,  in 
the  Swiss  fashion.  Rodolphe  had  greatlj' 
praised  tliis  elegant  construction,  and  ex- 
tolled the  view  f  I'om  this  gallery  ;  but  it 
was  all  in  vain.  When  he  had  taken  leave 
of  the  Bergmanns,  he  felt  himself  a  fool, 
like  every  man  of  Avit  and  imagination 
disappointed  by  the  failure  of  a  plan  on 
whose  success  he  had  reckoned. 

"  In  the  evening  he  naturally  went  on 
the  lake  in  a  boat.  Coasting  the  prom- 
ontory, he  went  as  far  as  Brunnen  and 
Schwitz,  and  returned  at  jiightfall.  From 
a  distance  he  perceived  the  window  open 
and  strongly  lighted.  He  could  hear  the 
sound  of  the  piano  and  the  accents  of  a 
delicious  voice.  He  stopped  the  boat  to 
abandon  himself  to  the  charm  of  listening 
to  an  Italian  air  divinely  sung.  When 
the  song  had  ceased,  Rodolphe  landed, 
and  dismissed  the  boat  and  the  boat- 
men. At  the  risk  of  wetting  his  feet,  he 
went  and  seated  himself  under  the  bank 
of  granite  worn  away  by  the  waters  and 
crowned  by  a  strong  hedge  of  thorny 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


255 


acacias,  along-  which  an  alley  of  young 
lime  trees  stretched  into  the  Berg-manns' 
g-arden.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  he  heard 
talking-  and  walking-  above  his  head,  but 
the  words  which  reached  his  ear  were  all 
Italian,  and  pronounced  by  two  young 
female  voices.  He  took  advantage  of  the 
moment  when  the  two  interlocutricos  were 
at  one  end  to  i-each  the  other  without 
noise.  After  half  an  hour  of  efforts,  he 
attained  the  end  of  the  avenue,  and, 
without  being  seen  or  heard,  succeeded 
in  taking-  a  position  from  which  he  could 
see  the  two  women  without  being  seen  by 
them  when  they  came  toward  him.  Wliat 
was  the  astonishment  of  Rodolphe  on 
recognizing-  in  one  of  the  two  women  the 
little  dumb  girl.  She  was  talking  to  Miss 
Lovelace  in  Italian.  It  was  eleven  at 
nig-ht.  The  stillness  on  the  lake  and 
around  the  habitation  was  so  profound 
that  the  two  women  might  well  believe 
themselves  in  safety  :  in  all  Gersau,  only 
their  own  eyes  would  be  open.  Rodolphe 
thought  the  dumbness  of  the  young  girl 
must  be  a  necessary  imposition.  From 
the  way  in  which  they  spoke  Italian, 
Rodolphe  guessed  that  it  was  the  mother 
tongue  of  the  two,  and  he  concluded  that 
the  Eng-lish  disg-uise  must  be  a  stratagem. 

"  '  They  are  Italian  refugees,'  said  he — 
'  exiles — who,  no  doubt,  are  in  fear  of  the 
Austrian  or  Sardinian  police.  The  young 
gii-l  waits  till  night  to  be  able  to  walk 
about  and  converse  in  security.' 

"Thereupon  he  threw  himself  into  the 
hedge,  and  crawled  like  a  serpent  to  find 
a  passage  between  two  acacia  roots.  At 
the  risk  of  leaving  his  coat  behind  him, 
or  seriousl3'  hurting  his  back,  he  got 
through  the  hedge,  while  the  pretended 
Miss  Fanny  and  her  pretended  dumb  girl 
were  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue  ;  and 
then,  when  they  had  got  to  within  twenty 
paces  of  him  without  seeing  him — for  he 
was  in  the  shadow  of  the  hedge,  then 
strongl3'-  lighted  up  by  the  moon — he  sud- 
denly rose  up. 

"'Fear  nothing,'  said  he,  in  French, 
to  the  Italian;  "lam  no  spy.  You  are 
refugees.  I  have  guessed  it.  I  myself 
am  a  Frenchman,  whom  a  single  glance 
from  you  has  fixed  at  Gersau. ' 


"  Rodolphe,  stung  by  the  pain  of  some 
steel  instrument  piercing  his  side,  fell  to 
the  ground. 

"  '  Nel  lago  con  pietra,' *  said  the 
terrible  mute. 

"  '  All !  Gina,'  exclaimed  the  Italian. 

"  'She  has  mtssed  me,'  said  Rodolphe, 
withdrawing  from  the  wound  a  stiletto 
which  had  struck  against  a  rib;  'but  a 
little  higher,  and  it  would  have  gone 
through  my  heart.  I  was  wrong,  Fran- 
cesca,'  said  he,  remembering  the  name 
little  Gina  had  several  times  pronounced. 
'I  am  not  angrj'  with  her.  Do  not  scold 
her ;  the  pleasure  of  speaking  to  you  is 
weU  worth  a  stiletto-cut ;  only  show  me 
m^'  wa.y.  I  must  return  to  the  Stopfers' 
house.     Be  at  ease,  I  will  say  nothing.' 

"  Francesca,  having  recovered  from  her 
astonishment,  assisted  Rodolphe  to  raise 
himself,  and  said  some  words  to  Gina, 
whose  eyes  filled  with  tears.  The  two 
girls  forced  Rodolphe  to  sit  down  on  a 
bench  and  take  off  his  coat,  waistcoat,  and 
cravat.  Gina  opened  his  shirt  and  vio- 
lently sucked  the  wound.  Francesca, 
wlio  had  left  them,  returned  with  a  large 
piece  of  sticking-plaster,  which  she  ap- 
plied to   the  wound. 

"'You  will  be  able  to  get  as  far  as 
your  house  now,'  said  she. 

"Each  of  them  took  hold  of  an  arm, 
and  Rodolphe  was  conducted  to  a  little 
gate,  the  kej'  of  which  happened  to  be 
in  the  pocket  of  Franccsca's  apron. 

"  '  Does  Gina  speak  French  ? '  said  Ro- 
dolphe to  Francesca. 

"  'No ;  but  do  not  excite  yourself,'  said 
Francesca,  with  a  little  air  of  impatience. 

"'Let  me  see  you,'  replied  Rodolphe 
with  emotion,  'for,  perhaps,  it  will  be  a 
long  while  before  I  can  come — ' 

"  He  leaned  on  one  of  the  gate-posts 
and  gazed  at  the  fair  Italian,  who  allowed 
herself  to  be  looked  at  for  an  instant  in 
the  deepest  silence  and  the  loveliest  night 
that  had  ever  shone  on  this  lake,  the  king 
of  all  Swiss  lakes.  Francesca  was,  in- 
deed, the  classic  Italian,  .such  as  the  im- 
agination desires,  represents,  or  dreams, 
if  you  will,   all  Italians.      What  struck 

*  "  Into  the  lake  with  a  stone." 


256 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Rodolphe  at  once  was  the  eleg'ance  and 
grrace  of  her  figure,  whose  vigor  was  dis- 
played, despite  its  apparent  frailty,  in  its 
elasticity.  An  amber  p:illor  spread  over 
the  face  betra^'ed  a  sudden  interest,  which, 
however,  did  not  efface  the  voluptuous- 
ness of  two  limpid  eyes  of  velvet  black- 
ness. Two  hands,  the  loveliest  that  ever 
a  Greek  sculptor  hud  attached  to  the  pol- 
ished arm  of  a  statue,  held  Rodolphe  by 
tlie  arm,  and  their  whiteness  was  con- 
trasted with  the  blackness  of  his  coat. 
The  imprudent  Frenchman  could  onl3' 
just  perceive  the  elongated,  oval  shape 
of  the  face,  whose  sorrowful  and  slight- 
ly opened  mouth  disclosed  brilliant  teeth 
between  two  full  lips  fresh  and  ruddy. 
The  beauty  of  the  outlines  of  this  face 
guaranteed  to  Francesca  the  durability  of 
its  splendor ;  but  what  struck  Rodolphe 
most  was  the  adorable  unconsti^aint,  the 
Italian  frankness  of  this  girl,  who  g-ave 
herself  up  entirely  to  her  companion. 

"  Francesca  spoke  to  Gina,  who  gave 
her  arm  to  Rodolphe  as  far  as  the  Stop- 
fers'  house,  and  fled  like  a  swallow  when 
she  had  rung  the  bell. 

" '  These  patriots  do  not  strike  with 
light  hands,'  said  Rodolphe  to  himself, 
feeling  the  pain  of  his  wound  when  he 
was  alone  in  bed.  '  Nel  lago !  Gina 
would  have  thrown  me  into  the  lake  with 
a  stone  round  ray  neck  ! ' 

"  In  the  morning,  he  sent  to  Lucerne 
for  the  best  surgeon  ;  and  when  he  came, 
enjoined  on  him  the  most  profound  se- 
crecy, giving  him  to  understand  that 
honor  required  it.  Leopold  returned  from 
his  excursion  the  day  his  friend  left  his 
bed.  Rodolphe  made  him  up  a  story, 
and  got  him  to  go  to  Lucerne  for  their 
luggage  and  letters.  Leopold  brought 
back  the  most  fatal,  the  most  terrible 
news.  Rodolphe's  mother  was  dead. 
While  the  two  friends  were  going-  from 
Bale  to  Lucerne  the  fatal  letter,  written 
by  Leopold's  father,  had  arrived  there  the 
day  of  their  departure  for  Fluelen.  In 
spite  of  the  precautions  taken  by  Leopold, 
Rodolphe  was  seized  with  a  nervous  fever. 
As  soon  as  the  future  notary  saw  his  friend 
out  of  danger,  he  left  for  France,  pi'ovided 
with  a  power  of  attorney.    Rodolphe  was 


thus  enabled  to  remain  at  Gersau,  the 
only  place  in  the  world  where  his  grief 
could  be  calmed.  The  situation  of  the 
j-oung  Frenchman,  his  despair,  and  the 
circumstances  which  rendered  this  loss 
more  terrible  for  him  than  for  any  other, 
were  known,  and  drew  upon  him  the  com- 
passion and  interest  of  all  Gersau.  Every 
morning  the  sham  mute  came  to  see  the 
Frenchman,  in  order  to  be  able  to  report 
to  her  mistress. 

"  When  Rodolphe  was  able  to  go  out, 
he  went  to  the  Bergmanns',  to  thank  Miss 
Fanny  Lovelace  and  her  father  for  the  in- 
terest they  had  shown  in  his  affliction  and 
his  Illness.  For  the  first  time  since  his 
establishment  with  the  Bergmanns,  the 
old  Italian  allowed  a  stranger  to  pene- 
trate Into  his  apartments,  where  Rodolphe 
Avas  received  with  a  cordiality  due  to  his 
misfortunes  and  his  character  of  a  French- 
man, which  precluded  all  suspicion.  Fran- 
cesca appeared  so  lovely  in  the  full  light 
during  the  first  evening,  that  she  cast  a 
ray  of  light  on  this  desponding  heart. 
Her  smiles  strewed  over  his  mourning 
the  roses  of  hope.  She  sang,  not  gay 
airs,  but  grave  and  sublime  melodies  ap- 
propriate to  the  state  of  Rodolphe's  heart, 
and  he  remarked  this  touching  considera- 
tion. About  eight  o'clock,  the  old  man 
left  the  two  young  people  alone,  without 
any  appearance  of  distrust,  and  retired  to 
his  own  room.  When  Francesca  was  tired 
of  singing,  she  took  Rodolphe  to  the  ex- 
terior gallery,  fi'om  which  the  sublime 
view  of  the  lake  was  visible,  and  made  a 
sign  to  him  to  sit  down  by  her  side  on  a 
rustic  wood  seat. 

" '  Would  it  be  impertinent  to  ask  your 
age,  cara  Francesca?  "  said  Rodolphe. 

"  'Nineteen,'  she  answered. 

"  'If  anything  in  the  world  could  lessen 
my  grief, '  continued  he,  '  it  would  be  the 
hope  of  obtaining  j'ou  from  youv  father, 
whatever  may  be  the  state  of  your  fort- 
une. Lovelj'  as  you  are,  you  seem  to  me 
richer  than  the  daughter  of  a  prince,  and 
I  tremble  in  avowing  the  sentiments  with 
which  you  have  inspired  me ;  but  they 
are  profound — they  are  eternal.' 

"  '  Zitto,'  said  Francesca,  putting  one 
of  the  fingers  of  her  right  hand  on  her 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


257 


lips.  '  Do  not  go  any  further.  I  am  not 
free  ;  I  have  been  married  three  years.' 

"A  profound  silence  reigned  for  some 
instants  between  them.  When  the  Italian, 
alarmed  at  the  attitude  of  Rodolphe,  drew 
nearer  to  him,  she  found  he  had  fainted 
awaj'. 

"  '  Povero!  '  she  said  to  herself,  '  and  I 
thoug-ht  he  was  cold  ! ' 

"  She  went  to  get  her  salts,  and  restored 
Rodolphe  by  making  him  inhale  them. 

"  '  Married  !  '  said  Rodolphe,  looking 
at  Francesca.  His  tears  fell  in  abun- 
dance. 

"  '  Child,'  said  she,  '  there  is  hope.  My 
husband  is — ■' 

"•Eighty?'  said  Rodolphe. 

"'No,',  she  replied,  smiling;  'sixty- 
five.  He  put  on  the  mask  of  age  to  de- 
ceive the  police.' 

"'Dear  one,'  said  Rodolphe,  'a  few 
more  emotions  like  this,  and  I  must  die. 
Only  after  twenty  yeai's  of  acquaintance 
will  you  know  the  strength  and  power  of 
my  heart,  and  the  nature  of  its  aspira- 
tions after  happiness.  This  plant  does 
not  shoot  up  with  more  eagerness  to  blos- 
som in  the  rays  of  tlie  sun,'  said  he, 
pointing  to  a  Virginian  jessamine  which 
covered  the  balustrade,  '  than  I  have  be- 
come attached  for  the  last  month  to  you. 
I  love  you  with  an  unequaled  love.  This 
love  will  be  the  secret  spring  of  my  life, 
and  perhaps  I  shall  die  of  it.' 

"  '  Oh,  Frenchman  !  Frenchman  ! '  said 
she,  commenting  his  exclamation  with  a 
little  grimace  of  incredulity. 

'•  '  Must  I  not  wait  for  you,  and  receive 
you  from  the  hands  of  time  ?  '  continued 
he  with  gravity.  '  But  know  this :  if  you 
are  sincere  in  the  words  which  have  es- 
caped you,  I  will  wait  for  you  faithfullj^ 
without  allowing  any  other  sentiment  to 
spring  up  in  ray  heart. ' 

"  She  looked  at  him  slyly. 

" '  Nothing,'  said  he,  '  not  even  a  fancy. 
I  have  got  my  fortune  to  make  ;  it  must 
be  a  splendid  one,  for  your  sake.  Nature 
had  created  you  a  princess — ' 

"  At  this  vord  Francesca  could  not  re- 
strain a  faint  smile,  which  gave  a  most 
charming  expression  to  her  countenance, 
a   something    artful,   which    the    great 

Balzac— I 


Leonardo  has  so  well  depicted  in  his  '  Jo- 
conde.'    This  smile  made  Rodolphe  pause. 

"'Yes,'  resumed  he,  'you  must  suffer 
from  the  privations  to  which  exile  has 
reduced  you.  Ah  I  if  you  would  render 
me  the  happiest  of  men,  and  sanctify  my 
love,  you  would  have  me  as  a  friend. 
Have  I  not  a  right  to  be  your  friend  ? 
My  poor  mother  has  left  me  her  savings 
of  sixty  thousand  francs ;  accept  half  of 
them.' 

"  Francesca  looked  at  him  steadily. 
This  piercing  glance  went  to  the  bottom 
of  Rodolphe's  soul. 

"  We  are  not  in  want  of  anything  ;  my 
work  provides  our  luxuries,'  replied  she, 
in  a  grave  voice. 

"  '  Can  I  allow  Francesca  to  work  ?  ' 
cried-  he.  '  Some  day  you  wUl  return  to 
your  country,  and  yoii  will  recover  all  you 
have  left  behind  you.'  Again  the  young 
Italian  looked  at  Rodolphe.  'And  you 
will  repay  me  what  you  have  deigned  to 
borrow  of  me,'  added  he,  with  a  look  full 
of  delicacy. 

"  '  Let  us  quit  this  subject  of  conversa- 
tion,' said  she,  with  an  incomparable  no- 
bilitj^  of  gesture,  of  look,  and  of  attitude. 
'  Make  a  brilhant  fortune  ;  be  one  of  the 
remarkable  men  of  your  country ;  I  desire 
it.  Glory  is  a  flying  bridge  which  may 
serve  to  cross  an  abyss.  Be  ambitious — 
you  must.  I  believe  you  have  noble  and 
powerful  abilities,  but  employ  them  rather 
for  the  good  of  humanity  than  to  obtain 
me  ;  you  wiU  be  greater  in  my  eyes. ' 

"  During  this  conversation,  which  lasted 
two  hours,  Rodolphe  discovered  in  Fran- 
cesca the  enthusiasm  for  liberal  ideas  and 
the  worship  of  liberty  which  had  pro- 
duced the  triple  revolution  of  Naples, 
Piedmont,  and  Spain.  On  leaving,  he 
was  conducted  to  the  gate  by  Giua,  the 
sham  mute.  At  eleven  o'clock  nobody 
was  about  in  the  village  ;  no  indiscretion 
was  to  be  feared.  Rodolphe  drew  Gina 
into  a  corner,  and  asked  her  softly,  in 
bad  Italian — 

" '  Who  are  your  masters,  my  giii  ? 
Tell  me,  and  I  will  give  you  this  bright 
new  piece  of  gold.' 

"  '  Sir,'  replied  the  girl,  taking  the  coin, 
'master  is  the  famous  bookseller.  Lam- 


258 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


porani  of  Milan,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
revolution — t  he  conspirator  Austria  would, 
most  like  to  have  in  the  Spielberg.' 

"  '  The  wife  of  a  bookseller  ?  Ali  !  so 
much  the  better,'  thoug-ht  he;  'we  are 
on  a  level.  And  to  what  family  does  she 
belong?'  continued  he,  aloud,  'for  she 
has  the  air  of  a  queen.' 

"'All  the  Italian  women  are  like  that,' 
answered  Giua,  proudly.  'Her  father's 
name  is  Colonna.' 

"Emboldened  by  the  humble  condition 
of  Francesca,  Rodolphe  had  an  a\^^ling 
put  to  his  boat  and  some  cushions  in  the 
stem.  When  this  alteration  was  effected, 
Rodolplie  came  and  proposed  to  Fran- 
cesca an  excursion  on  the  lake.  The 
Italian  accepted,  no  doubt  to  keep  up 
her  character  of  a  young  miss  in  the 
eyes  of  the  village;   but  she  took  Gina. 

"  The  slightest  actions  of  Francesca 
Colonna  betrayed  a  superior  education 
and  the  highest  social  rank.  From  the 
manner  in  which  the  Italian  seated  her- 
self at  the  end  of  the  boat,  Rodolphe  felt 
to  some  extent  .separated  from  her,  and 
his  premeditated  familiarities  dropped  be- 
fore the  expression  of  the  true  pride  of 
nobility.  Bj'  a  look,  Francesca  created 
herself  a  princess,  with  all  the  privileges 
she  would  have  enjoyed  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  She  seemed  to  have  guessed  the 
secret  thoughts  of  this  vassal  who  had 
the  audacity  to  constitute  himself  her 
protector.  Already,  in  the  furniture  of 
the  salon  in  which  Francesca  had  re- 
ceived him,  in  her  dress,  and  in  the  most 
trifling  articles  she  made  use  of,  Rodolphe 
had  recognized  the  indications  of  a  lofty 
nature  and  a  high  fortune.  All  these  ob- 
servations recurred  at  once  to  his  memory, 
and  he  became  pensive  after  having  been, 
so  to  speak,  repulsed  bj'  the  dignity  of 
Francesca.  Gina,  her  scarcely  adolescent 
confidante,  seemed  to  wear  a  mocking 
expression  wliile  looking  aside  or  stealthi- 
ly at  Rodolphe.  This  visible  discordance 
between  the  condition  and  the  manners  of 
the  Italian  was  a  new  enigma  to  Rodolphe, 
who  suspected  some  fresh  trick,  like  the 
sham  dumbness  of  Gina. 

"  '  Where  would  you  like  to  go,  Signora 
Lamporani  ? '  said  he. 


"  '  To  Lucerne,'  answered  Francesca,  in 
French. 

"  '  Good  ! '  thought  Rodolphe.  '  She 
is  not  surprised  at  hearing  mo  mention 
her  name.  She  had,  no  doubt,  antici- 
pated my  question  to  Gina,  the  cunning 
one  !  What  have  I  done  to  offend  you  ?  ' 
said  he  at  length,  coming  to  seat  himself 
by  her,  and  seeking  by  a  gesture  a  hand 
which  Francesca  withdrew.  '  You  are 
cold  and  ceremonious — what  we  should 
call,  in  conversation,  cutting.' 

'"It  is  true,'  replied  she,  smiling;  'I 
am  wrong.  It  is  not  right ;  it  is  vulgar. 
You  would  say  in  French  it  is  not  artistic. 
It  is  better  to  explain  one's  self  than  to 
keep  up  hostile  or  cold  feelings  toward  a 
friend ;  and  you  have  already  proved 
your  friendship.  Perhaps  I  have  gone 
too  far  with  you.  You  must  have  taken 
me  for  a  very  common  person.' 

"Rodolphe  made  repeated  signs  of 
denial. 

"  'Yes,'  said  this  bookseller's  wife,  con- 
tinuing without  taking  any  notice  of  the 
pantomime,  which,  however,  she  saw  well 
enough;  'I  have  perceived  it,  and,  nat- 
urall3%  I  have  drawn  back.  Well,  I  will 
put  an  end  to  it  all  by  a  few  words  of  pro- 
found truth.  Be  well  assured,  Rodolphe; 
I  feel  in  myself  the  strength  to  stifle  a 
sentiment  which  would  not  be  in  harmony 
with  the  ideas  or  the  prescience  I  have  of 
real  love.  I  can  love  as  we  know  how  to 
love  in  Italy ;  but  I  know  my  duty.  No 
intoxication  will  make  nie  forg-et  it.  Mar 
ried  without  my  own  consent  to  this  poor 
old  man,  I  might  avail  myself  of  the  lib- 
ert}'  he  leaves  me  with  so  much  generos- 
ity ;  but  three  3'ears  of  marriage  are 
equivalent  to  an  acceptance  of  conjugal 
faith,  and  the  most  \aolent  passion  would 
not  make  me  express,  even  involuntarily, 
a  desire  to  be  free.  Emilio  knows  mj' 
character.  He  knows  that,  except  my 
heart,  which  belongs  to  me  and  which  I 
can  dispose  of,  I  would  not  allow  my  hand 
to  be  touched.  That  is  why  I  have  just 
refused  it  to  you.  I  must  be  loved,  awaited 
with  fidelity,  nobilitj',  and  aulor,  while  ac- 
cording nothing  but  an  infinite  tenderness, 
whose  expression  must  not  exceed  the 
limits  of  the  heart — the  privileged  ground. 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


259 


All  these  things  well  understood — oh  ! ' 
continued  she,  with  a  g-irlish  gesture, 
*  then  I  will  be  coquettish,  laughing,  and 
plaj'ful  as  a  child  who  does  not  know  the 
danger  of  familiarity.' 

"This  declaration,  perfectly  frank  and 
clear,  was  made  in  a  tone,  and  with  an 
accent,  and  accompanied  by  looks  which 
stamped  it  with  the  most  profound  truth. 

'•'A  Princess  Colonna  could  not  have 
spoken  better,'  said  Rodolphe,  with  a 
smile. 

"'Is  that,' said  she,  with  a  haughty 
air,  'a  reproach  on  the  lowuess  of  my 
birth  ?  Does  your  love  require  a  coat-of- 
arms?  In  Milan  the  greatest  names, 
Sforza,  Canova  Visconti,  Trivalzio,  Ur- 
sini,  are  written  up  over  the  shops ;  there 
are  Archintos  apothecaries;  but,  believe 
that,  in  spite  of  my  condition  as  a  shop- 
keeper, I  have  the  feelings  of  a  duchess.' 

"'A.  reproach?  No,  madame ;  I  in- 
tended it  for  a   compliment.' 

"  *  By  comparison  ?  '  said  she,  archly. 

'"Ah!  believe  me,' resumed  he,  'and 
torment  me  no  longer.  If  my  words  do 
not  properly  express  my  feelings,  my  love 
is  absolute,  and  comprises  infinite  obedi- 
ence and  respect.' 

"She  inclined  her  head  as  if  satisfied, 
and  said,   '  You  accept  the  treaty-,  then  ?  ' 

"'Yes,' said  he.  'I  comprehend  that, 
in  a  rich  and  powerful  feminine  organiza- 
tion, the  faculty  of  loving  cannot  be  lost, 
and  that  you  would  restrain  it  from  deli- 
cacy. Ah,  Francesca,  a  mutual  passion, 
at  my  age  and  with  a  mistress  so  sub- 
lime, so  regally  lovely  as  you,  is  the  ac- 
complishment of  all  ray  hopes.  To  love 
you  as  you  desire  to  be  loved,  is  it  not  a 
safeguard  for  a  young  man  against  all 
base  follies  ?  Is  it  not  throwing  his  ener- 
gies into  a  noble  passion,  of  which  here- 
after he  maj-  be  proud,  and  which  will 
leave  him  only  fair  memories?  If  you 
knew  with  what  colors,  with  what  poesy 
you  have  just  clothed  the  mountains  of 
Pilatus  and  the  Rigi,  and  this  magnifi- 
cent basin — ' 

'•'  '  I  wish  to  know  it,'  said  she,  with  an 
Italian  simplicity  which  is  always  backed 
by  a  little  slyness. 

"  '  Well,  then,  this  hour  will  cast  its 


radiance  over  my  whole  life,  like  a  dia- 
mond on  the  brow  of  a  queen.' 

"As  her  only  answer,  Francesca  placed 
her  hand  in  that  of  Rodolphe. 

"  '  Oh,  dearest,  ever  dearest,  say  you 
have  never  loved  ! ' 

"  '  Never  !  ' 

"'And  you  permit  me  to  love  you 
nobly,  awaiting  all  from  Heaven  ?  '  he 
asked. 

"She  gently  lowered  her  head.  Two 
large  tears  rolled  down  Rodoiphe's  cheeks. 

"  '  Well,  what  ails  you  ?'  said  she,  drop- 
ping her  imperial  character. 

"  'I  have  no  longer  a  mother  to  tell 
how  happy  I  am.  She  has  quitted  the 
earth  without-  seeing  what  would  have 
soothed  her  last  moments.' 

"  'What?'  said  she. 

"  'Her  love  i-eplaced  by  an  equal  love.' 

'  '  Povero  mio  !  '  exclaimed  the  Ital- 
ian with  emotion.  'Believe  me,'  she  re- 
sumed, after  a  pause,  '  it  is  a  very  delight- 
ful thing,  and  a  very  great  element  of 
fidelity,  for  a  woman  to  know  that  she 
is  ever^'thing  on  earth  to  the  man  she 
loves ;  to  see  him  alone,  without  family, 
with  nothing  in  his  heart  but  his  love ; 
in  short,  to  have  him  all  to  herself.' 

"When  two  lovers  understand  each 
other  so  well,  the  heart  experiences  a 
delicious  quietude,  a  sublime  tranquillity. 
Certainty  is  the  base  required  by  human 
sentiments,  for  it  is  never  wanting  to  re- 
ligious sentiment :  man  is  always  certain 
of  being  requited  b\'  God.  Love  only  be- 
lieves itself  in  safety  through  this  likeness 
to  Divine  love;  and  you  must  have  fully  ex- 
perienced them  to  comprehend  the  delights 
of  this  moment,  always  unique  in  a  life. 
It  returns  no  more,  alas  !  than  the  emo- 
tions of  youth.  To  believe  in  a  woman  ; 
to  make  her  your  religion  on  earth,  the 
spring  of  3'our  life,  the  secret  luminary 
of  your  least  thoughts  —  is  it  not  to 
be  born  a  second  time?  A  young  man 
then  mingles  with  his  love  some  of 
that  he  feels  for  his  mother.  Ro- 
dolphe and  Francesca  for  some  time  kept 
profound  silence,  answering  each  other 
in  soft  looks  full  of  thought.  They  sym- 
pathized with  each  other  in  the  midst  of 
one   of   the  finest  spectacles  of  Nature, 


260 


THE    HUMAX    COMEDY. 


whose  richness,  explained  by  that  of  their 
own  hearts,  enabled  them  to  enjjravo  on 
their  memories  the  most  fugitive  impres- 
sions of  this  imique  hour.  There  had  not 
been  tlie  sligrhtest  appearance  of  coquetry 
in  the  conduct  of  Francesca.  Everything 
■was  noble,  grand,  and  without  reserve. 
This  grandeur  forcibly  struck  Rodolphe, 
who  recognized  in  it  the  difference  which 
distinguishes  the  Italian  from  the  French 
woman.  The  waters,  the  earth,  the  heav- 
ens, the  woman,  all  was  grandiose  and 
placid,  even  their  love,  in  the  midst  of 
this  picture,  vast  in  its  extent,  rich  in  its 
details,  and  in  which  they  sharpness  of  the 
snow_y  peaks,  their  rigid  forms  clearly 
marked  upon  the  azure,  recalled  to  Ro- 
dolphe the  conditions  to  which  his  happi- 
ness was  to  be  confined :  a  rich  countiy 
surrounded  by  snow. 

"  This  soft  intoxication  of  the  soul  was 
to  be  disturbed.  A  boat  was  coming  from 
Lucerne.  Gina,  who  had  been  looking  at- 
tentively at  it  for  some  time,  made  a  sign 
of  joy,  remaining  faithful  to  her  character 
of  a  mute.  The  boat  came  near,  and  when 
at  last  Francesca  was  able  to  see  the  faces 
in  it, '  Tito  ! '  she  cried,  perceiving  a  young 
man.  She  got  up  andTemained  standing, 
at  the  risk  of  being  drowned.  '  Tito,  Tito  ! ' 
she  cried,  waving  her  handkerchief. 

"  Tito  ordered  his  boatmen  to  row,  and 
the  two  boats  went  on  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. The  Italian  and  Tito  talked  with  so 
much  vivacity,  in  a  dialect  so  unknown  to 
a  man  who  scarcely  knew  book  Italian 
and  had  never  been  in  Italy,  that  Ro- 
dolphe could  neither  understand  nor  guess 
at  any  part  of  this  conversation.  The 
beautj^  of  Tito,  the  familiarity  of  Fran- 
cesca, the  joyous  air  of  Gina,  all  dis- 
pleased him.  Besides,  a  man  is  not  in 
love  if  he  does  not  feel  annoyed  at  seeing 
himself  left  for  another,  whoever  it  may 
be.  Tito  smartlj'  threw  a  little  leather 
bag,  no  doubt  full  of  gold,  to  Gina,  and 
then  a  packet  of  letters  to  Francesca, 
who  began  to  read  them,  making  a  sign 
of  adieu  to  Tito. 

"'Turn  back  immediately  to  Gersau,' 
said  she  to  the  boatmen  ;  '  I  must  not 
leave  my  poor  Emilio  to  pine  ten  minutes 
more  than  I  can  help.' 


"  '  What  has  happened  to  you  ?  '  asked 
Rodolphe,  when  he  saw  the  Italian  finish- 
ing her  last  letter. 

"  '  La  Ubertlt !  "  cried  she,  with  the  en- 
thusiasm of  an  ai'tist. 

" '  E  denaro ! '  answered  like  an  echo 
Gina,  who  was  able  to  speak  at  last. 

"'Yes,'  resumed  Francesca,  'no  more 
misery  !  It  is  eleven  months  now  that 
I  have  had  to  work,  and  I  was  beginning 
to  get  tired  of  it.  Decidedly  I  am  not  a 
literarj'  character.' 

"  '  What  is  this  Tito  ? '  said  Rodolphe. 
" '  The  secretary  of  state  of  the  finan- 
cial department  of  the  jioor  business  of 
Colonna,  otherwise  called  the  son  of  our 
ragjonato.  Poor  fellow !  he  could  not 
get  to  us  by  the  Saint  Gothard,  nor  by 
Mont  Cenis,  nor  by  the  Simplon  ;  he  came 
by  sea,  by  Marseille.  He  had  to  cross  all 
through  France.  In  short,  in  three  weeks 
we  shall  be  at  Geneva  and  living  at  our 
ease.  Come,  Rodolphe,'  said  she,  seeing 
the  sadness  spread  oyer  the  face  of  the 
Parisian,  '  is  not  the  Lake  of  Geneva  as 
good  as  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Cantons  ?  ' 
"  '  Permit  me  to  bestow  a  regret  on  this 
delicious  house  of  the  Bergraanns,'  said 
Rodolphe,  pointing  to  the  promontorj'. 

"  'You  must  come  and  dine  with  us,  to 
multiply  your  souvenirs,  ^oyero  mio,'  said 
she.  '  It  is  a  fete  to-day.  We  are  no 
longer  in  danger ;  my  mother  tells  me 
that  in  a  year,  perhaps,  we  shall  be  am- 
nestied.    Oh,  la  cara  patria  !  ' 

"These  three  words  set  Gina  crj-ing. 
'  Another  winter  here  and  I  should  have 
been  dead  ! '  she  said. 

"  'Poor  little  child  of  Sicily,'  said  Fran- 
cesca, placing  her  hand  on  Gina's  head 
with  a  gesture  and  an  affection  which 
made  Rodolphe  long  to  be  so  caressed, 
although  it  was  without  love. 

"  The  boat  came  ashore ;  Rodolphe 
leaped  on  to  the  sand,  held  out  his  hand 
to  the  Italian,  accompanied  her  to  the 
gate  of  the  Bergmanns'  house,  and  went 
home  to  dress,  so  as  to  get  back  the 
sooner. 

"  Finding  the  bookseller  and  his  wife 
sitting  in  the  outer  gallery,  Rodolphe  with 
difficulty  repressed  a  start  of  surprise  at 
the  sight  of  the  prodigious  change  the 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


261 


good  news  had  worked  in  the  man  of 
ninety.  He  saw  before  him  a  man  of 
about  sixty,  perfectly  well  preserved ;  a 
spare  Italian,  straight  as  an  I,  his  hair 
^txM  black,  though  scanty,  and  disclosing 
a  white  scalp,  fiery  eyes,  white  and  per- 
fect teeth,  the  face  of  a  Caesar  and  a  dip- 
lomatic mouth,  with  a  half -sardonic  smile 
—  the  nearly  alwaj's  false  smile  under 
which  a  well-bred  man  conceals  his  true 
sentiments. 

"  '  Here  is  my  husband  ta  his  natural 
shape,'  said  Francesca,  gravely. 

"  'It  is  quite  a  new  acquaintance,'  re- 
plied Rodolphe  at  a  nonplus. 

' ' '  Quite, '  said  the  bookseller.  '  I  have 
acted  on  the  stage,  and  I  can  play  tlie  old 
man  perfectly.  Ah !  I  used  to  play  at 
Paris,  in  the  time  of  the  empire,  with 
Bourienne,  Madame  Murat,  Madame 
d'Ab^-antes,  e  tutti  quanti.  Ever^iihing 
one  has  taken  the  trouble  to  learn  in  one"s 
youth,  even  the  most  frivolous  things, 
may  turn  out  useful.  If  my  wife  had  not 
received  a  masculine  education,  which  is  a 
contradiction  in  Italy,  I  should  have  had 
to  turn  wood-cutter  for  a  living  here. 
Povera  Francesca  !  who  could  hav^e  told 
me  that  some  day  she  would  support  me?'' 

"Listening  to  this  worthy  bookseller, 
so  easy,  so  affable,  and  so  lively,  Ro- 
dolphe suspected  some  mystification,  and 
maintained  the  watchful  silence  of  a  man 
who  has  been  duped. 

"  '  Che  avete,  signor  ? '  Francesca 
archlj^  asked  him.  'Does  our  happiness 
distress  you  ? ' 

"  'Your  husband  is  a  young  man,'  he 
whispered  in  her  ear. 

"She  burst  into  a  fit  of  laughter,  so 
frank  and  so  catching  that  Rodolphe  was 
all  the  more  dumfouuded. 

"'He  is  only  sixty-five,  at  your  ser- 
vice,' said  she;  'but  still,  I  assure  you, 
that  is  something  reassuring.' 

'"I  dio  not  like  to  hear  you  joking 
about  a  love  so  sacred  as  that  whose  con- 
ditions you  have  fixed  yourself.' 

"  'Zitto  !  '  said  she,  stamping  her  foot 
and  looking  whether  her  husband  was 
listening  to  thein.  'Never  disturb  the 
peace  of  this  man  who  is  dear  to  me,  as 
open  as  a  chUd,  and  with  whom  I  do  as  I 


like.  He  is  under  my  protection,'  she 
added.  'If  you  knew  with  what  nobility 
he  risked  his  life  and  his  fortune,  because 
I  was  a  Liberal !  For  he  does  not  share 
my  political  opinions.  Is  that  loving, 
Mister  Frenchman  ?  But  they  are  like 
that  in  their  family.  The  j-ounger  bro- 
ther of  Emilio  was  deceived  by  the  woman 
he  loved,  for  a  charming  young  man.  He 
ran  his  sword  through  his  heart,  and  ten 
minutes  previously  Le  said  to  his  valet, 
"I  could  easily  kill  m}'  rival,  but  that 
would  give  too  much  pain  to  la  diva."  ' 

"  This  combination  of  nobility  and  jest- 
ing, of  grandeur  and  childishness,  made 
Francesca  at  this  moment  the  most  at- 
tractive creature  in  the  jvorld.  The  din- 
ner, as  well  as  the  evening,  was  stamped 
with  a  gayety  justified  by  the  deliverance 
of  the  two  refugees,  but  which  grieved 
Rodolphe. 

"  '  Can  she  be  a  trifler  ? '  he  said  to  him- 
self on  returning  to  the  Stopfers'  house. 
'  She  sympathized  with  mj'  grief,  and  I — 
I  cannot  espouse  her  joy.'  He  blamed 
himself,  and  justified  this  young  girl- 
wife.  '  She  is  without  the  slightest  hypoc- 
Tisy,  and  gives  waj'  to  he?  impressions,' 
he  said  to  himself,  '  and  I  would  have  her 
like  a  Parisian  I ' 

"  The  next  and  the  following  days — for 
three  weeks,  in  fact — Rodolphe  passed  all 
his  time  at  the  Bergmanns'  house,  ob- 
serving Francesca  without  having  in- 
tended to  observe  her.  Admiration,  in 
certain  characters,  is  not  unaccompanied 
by  a  sort  of  penetration.  The  young 
Frenchman  recognized  in  Francesca  an 
imprudent  young  girl,  the  true  woman's 
nature  still  untamed,  struggling  at  some 
moments  with  her  love,  and  at  other  mo- 
ments giving  way  to  it.  The  old  man 
behaved  to  her  as  a  father  to  his  child, 
and  Francesca  showed  him  a  deeply  felt 
gratitude  which  revealed  an  instinctive 
nobility.  This  situation  and  this  woman 
presented  to  Rodolphe  an  impenetrable 
enigma,  whose  solution  moi-e  and  more 
strongly  attracted  him. 

"These  Inst  days  were  full  of  secret 
fetes,  mingled  with  melancholy — of  rup- 
tures and  quarrels  more  charming  than 
the  hours  when  Rodolphe  and  Francesca 


262 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


were  perfectly-  agreed.  In  short,  he  was 
more  and  more  captivated  by  the  charm 
of  this  unreasoning-  affection  alwaj's  con- 
sistent with  itself,  by  this  love  jealous  of 
a  shadow — already  ! 

"'You  are  very  fond  of  luxury,' said 
he,  one  evening,  to  Francesca,  who  had 
manifested  a  desire  to  leave  Gersau, 
where  many  things  were  wanting. 

"'I!'  said  she.  'I  like  luxury  as  I 
like  art — as  I  like  a  picture  of  Raphael's, 
a  fine  horse,  a  fine  daj',  or  the  Bay  of 
Naples. — Emilio,'  said  she,  'have  I  ever 
complained  during  our  days  of  distress 
here  ? ' 

"'You  would  not  have  been  j-ourself,' 
said  the  old  booliseller,  gravely. 

"  'After  all,  is  it  not  natural  for  shop- 
keepers to  long  for  greatness  ?  '  continued 
she,  darting  a  mischievous  glance  both  at 
Rodolphe  and  hor  husband.  'M3'  feet,' 
said  she,  putting  out  two  charming  little 
feet — '  arc  they  made  for  enduring  fatigue? 
My  hands ' — she  stretched  out  a  hand  to 
■Rodolphe — '  are  these  hands  made  for  hard 
work?  Leave  us,'  said  she  to  her  hus- 
band ;  '  I  want  to  speak  to  him.' 

"The  eld  miln  went  into  the  salon  with 
sublime  good  nature;  he  was  sure  of  his 
wife. 

" '  I  do  not  wish  you,'  said  she  to 
Rodolphe,  'to  accompany  us  to  Geneva. 
Geneva  is  a  city  of  scandals.  Although 
I  am  fai-  above  the  tittle-tattle  of  society, 
I  will  not  be  calumniated — not  for  my  own 
sake,  but  for  his.  I  make  it  my  pride  to 
be  the  glory  of  this  old  man,  my  only  pro- 
tector after  aU.  We  are  going  to  leave. 
You  remain  here  for  some  days.  When 
you  come  to  Geneva,  make  acquaintance 
with  m3'  husband  first,  and  let  him  intro- 
duce you  to  me.  Let  us  hide  our  un- 
changeable and  profound  affection  from 
the  eyes  of  the  world.  I  love  you.  You 
know  it ;  and  this  is  how  I  will  prove  it : 
5'ou  shall  never  discover  in  my  conduct 
the  slightest  thing  that  could  arouse  your 
jealousy.' 

"  She  drew  him  into  the  corner  of  the 
gallery,  took  him  by  the  head,  kissed  him 
on  the  forehead,  and  disappeared,  leaving 
him  stupefied. 

"  The  next  day,  Rodolphe  learned  that 


the  inmates  of  the  Bergmanns'  house  had 
left  at  the  break  of  day.  From  that  mo- 
ment, residence  at  Gersau  appeared  un- 
supportable,  and  he  started  for  Vevay  by 
the  longest  road,  traveling  faster  than^ 
he  ought  to  have  done;  but,  attracted 
by  the  waters  of  the  lake  where  the  fair 
Italian  awaited  him,  he  arrived  about 
the  end  of  October  at  Geneva.  To  avoid 
the  inconveniences  of  the  city,  he  lodged 
in  a  house  situated  at  Eaux-Vives,  out- 
side the  ramparts.  Once  installed,  his 
first  care  Avas  to  ask  his  host,  a  retired 
jeweler,  if  some  Italian  refugees  from 
Milan  had  not  lately  come  to  stay  at 
Geneva. 

'"Not  that  I  know  of,'  his  host  told 
him.  '  The  Prince  and  Princess  Colonna 
of  Rome  have  taken  the  residence  of 
Monsieur  Jeanrenaud,  one  of  the  finest 
on  the  lake,  for  three  years.  It  is  situ- 
ated between  the  Villa  Diodati  and  the 
residence  of  Monsieur  Lafln  de  Dieu, 
which  is  let  to  the  Vicomtesse  de  Beau- 
seant.  Prince  Colonna  has  taken  it  for 
his  daughter  and  his  son-in-law,  Prince 
Gandolphini,  a  Neapolitan  or  Sicilian,  if 
you  like,  a  former  partisan  of  King  Murat 
and  a  victim  of  the  last  revolution.  These 
are  the  last  arrivals  at  Geneva,  and  they 
are  not  Milanese.  It  required  strong  in- 
terest and  the  protection  accorded  by  the 
Pope  to  the  Colonna  family,  to  obtain 
from  the  foreign  i^owers  and  the  king  of 
Naples  permission  for  the  Prince  and 
Princess  Gandolphini  to  reside  here. 
Geneva  wUl  not  do  anything  to  dis- 
please the  Holy  Alliance,  to  which  she 
owes  her  independence.  Our  part  is  not 
to  offend  foreign  courts.  There  are  a 
great  many  foreigners  here  —  Russians, 
English.' 

"  '  There  are  even  Genevese.' 

"  '  Yes,  sir.  Our  lake  is  so  fine  !  Lord 
BjTon  lived  here  about  seven  yeai-s  ago, 
at  the  Villa  Diodati,  whicli  everybody' 
goes  to  see  now,  like  Coppet  and  Fer- 
ney.' 

"  '  Could  you  not  ascertain  whether, 
during  the  last  week,  a  bookseller  of 
Milan  and  his  wife,  named  Lamporani, 
one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  last  revolution, 
have  come  here  ? ' 


ALB  Eli  l '    SA  VAR  US. 


263 


"'I  can  ascertain  by  going  to  the 
strangers'  club,'  said  the  retired  jew- 
eler. 

"Rodolphe's  first  excursion  was  natu- 
rally to  the  Villa  Diodati,  the  residence 
of  Lord  Byron,  which  the  recent  death 
of  the  great  poet  had  endowed  with  still 
more  attraction.  Is  not  death  the  conse- 
cration of  genius  ?  The  road  which  from 
Eaux-Vives  follows  the  shores  of  the 
Lake  of  Geneva  is,  like  all  the  roads  in 
Switzerland,  rather  narrow,  and  in  cer- 
tain places,  owing  to  the  rocky  nature  of 
the  ground,  there  is  scarcely  room  enough 
left  for  the  carriages  to  pass.  At  some 
paces  from  the  Jeanrenauds'  house,  close 
to  which  he  had  arrived  without  knowing 
it,  Rodolphe  heard  behind  him  the  noise 
of  a  carriage,  and,  finding  himself  in  a 
species  of  gorge,  he  climbed  on  to  the 
point  of  a  rock  to  leave  a  free  passage. 
Naturally,  he  looked  at  the  carriage 
coming  toward  him,  an  elegant  caleche 
drawn  by  two  magnificent  English  horses. 
He  was  thunderstruck  at  seeing,  at- the 
back  of  this  caleche,  Francesca,  divinely 
dressed,  by  the  side  of  an  old  lady  as  stiff 
as  a  cameo.  A  chasseur,  dazzling  with 
gold,  was  holding  on  behind  the  car- 
riage. Francesca  recognized  Rodolphe, 
and  smiled  at  finding  him  there,  perched 
like  a  statue  on  its  pedestal.  The  car- 
riage, which  the  lover  was  enabled  to  fol- 
low with  his  eyes  by  climbing  the  height, 
turned  to  enter  the  gate  of  a  country 
house,  to  which  he  ran. 

"  'Who  lives  here?'  he  asked  the  gar- 
dener. 

"'The  Prince  and  Princess  Colonna, 
as  well  as  the  Prince  and  Princess  Gan- 
dolphini.' 

" '  Is  it  not  they  who  have  just  gone 
in?' 

'"Yes,  sir.' 

"In  a  moment  the  veil  fell  from  the 
eyes  of  Rodolphe  ;  he  saw  through  the 
past  clearly. 

"'Provided,'  said  the  thunderstruck 
lover  to  himself,  'that  this  is  her  last 
mystification  ! ' 

"  He  trembled  lest  he  should  have  been 
the  plaything  of  a  caprice,  for  he  had 
heard  speak  of  what  a  cappriccio  is  to  an 


Italian.  But  what  a  crime  in  the  eyes  of 
a  woman,  to  have  treated  as  a  shopkeeper 
a  princess  of  princely  birth  — to  have 
taken  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  most 
illustrious  families  of  the  Middle  Ages  for 
the  wife  of  a  bookseller !  The  conscious- 
ness of  his  faults  redoubled  Rodolphe's 
desire  to  know  whether  he  would  be  dis- 
owned, repulsed.  He  asked  for  the  Prince 
Gandoljihini,  sending  up  his  card,  and 
was  immediately  received  by  the  sham 
Lamporani,  who  came  to  meet  him,  and 
welcomed  him  with  perfect  grace,  with 
Neapolitan  affability,  and  took  him  on  to 
a  terrace  from  which  you  could|sec  Geneva, 
the  Jura  and  its  slopes  studded  with  villas, 
and,  beyond,  the  shores  of  the  lake  to  a 
■wide  extent. 

" '  My  wife  is  faithful  to  lakes,  .you  see,' 
said  he,  after  having  described  the  coun- 
try to  his  guest.  '  We  have  a  sort  of 
concert  to-night,'  added  he,  returning 
towai'd  the  magnificent  house  of  Jean- 
renaud ;  '  I  hope  you  will  do  the  princess 
and  myself  the  pleasure  of  coming.  Two 
months  of  misery  gone  through  together 
are  equal  to  years  of  friendship.' 

"  Although  devoured  by  curiosity,  Ro- 
dolphe did  not  venture  to  ask  to  see  the 
princess;  he  returned  slowly  to  Eaux- 
Vives,  thinking  of  the  evening.  In  a  few 
hours,  his  love,  however  immense  already, 
was  aggrandized  by  his  anxiet3'^  and  by 
the  expectation  of  coming  events.  He 
understood  now  the  necessity  of  becoming 
illustrious,  to  raise  himself  to  the  height, 
sociallj'  speaking,  of  his  idol.  Francesca 
appeared  very  grand  in  his  eyes  from  the 
unaffectedness  and  simplicitj-  of  her  con- 
duct at  Gersau.  The  naturally  haughty 
air  of  the  Princess  Coluniui  dismayed  Ro- 
dolphe. who  would  have  the  father  and 
motlicr  of  Fra  ncesca  for  enemies — at  least, 
he  must  expect  it  ;  and  the  mj'stery  the 
Princess  Gandolphini  had  so  strongly  im- 
pressed upon  him  now  appeared  an  ad- 
mirable proof  of  alTection.  By  taking 
precautions  for  the  future,  did  not  Fran- 
cesca clearly  say  that  she  loved  Ro- 
dolphe? 

•'At  last  nine  o'clock  struck  ;  Rodolphe 
was  able  to  get  into  a  carriage  and  say, 
with  an  emotion  easv  to  understand,  '  To 


2G4 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  Jeanrenauds'  house,  the  Prince  Gan- 
dolphini's  ! ' 

"At  last  he  entered  the  salon,  full  of 
foreigners  of  the  highest  distinction,  and 
where  he  remained  of  necessity  among 
a  group  near  the  door — for  at  the  moment 
they  were  singing  a  duet  from  Rossini. 

"At  last  he  could  see  Francesca,  but 
without  being  seen  by  her.  The  princess 
was  standing  two  steps  from  the  piano. 
Her  marvelous  hair,  so  long  and  so  abun- 
dant, was  confined  in  a  circlet  of  gold. 
Her  face,  lighted  up  by  the  candles,  was 
radiant  with  the  whiteness  peculiar  to  t4ie 
Italians,  and  which  only  produces  its  full 
effect  by  candlelight.  She  was  in  ball 
dress,  exposing  to  admiration  her  charm- 
ing shoulders,  the  figui'e  of  a  young  girl, 
and  the  arms  of  an  antique  statue.  Her 
sublime  beauty  was  beyond  all  possible 
rivalry,  although  there  were  present  some 
charming  English  and  Russians,  the  pret- 
tiest women  of  Geneva,  and  some  other 
Italians,  among  whona  shone  the  illustri- 
ous Princess  of  Varese  and  the  famous 
singer  Tinti,  who  was  singing  at  the  mo- 
ment. 

"  Rodolphe,  leaning  against  the  door- 
way, gazed  at  the  princess,  darting  at 
her  that  fixed,  persistent,  and  attractive 
glance  charged  with  the  whole  power  of 
the  human  will  concentrated  in  the  senti- 
ment called  desire,  but  which  then  as- 
sumes the  character  of  a  violent  com- 
mandment. Did  the  lire  of  this  glance 
reach  Francesca  ?  Was  Francesca  ex- 
pecting every  moment  to  see  Rodolphe  ? 
At  the  end  of  a  few  minutes  she  cast  a 
glance  toward  the  door,  as  if  attracted  by 
this  current  of  love,  and  her  eyes,  with- 
out hesitation,  encountered  the  eye  of 
Rodolphe.  A  slight  shudder  agitated 
this  magnificent  face  and  this  splendid 
frame.  The  mental  shock  had  its  reac- 
tion; Francesca  blushed.  Rodolphe  lived, 
as  it  were,  a  whole  life  in  tliis  exchange, 
so  rapid  that  it  can  only  be  compared  to 
a  flash  of  lightning.  But  what  can  com- 
pare with  his  happiness  ?  He  was  be- 
loved !  The  sublime  princess  kept,  in  the 
face  of  the  world,  in  the  splendid  Maison 
Jeanrenaud,  the  promise  given  by  the 
poor   exQe,    the    capricious    girl    of    the 


Maison  Bergmann.  The  intoxication  of 
such  a  moment  renders  a  man  a  slave  for 
life  !  A  sly  smile,  elegant  and  artful, 
frank  and  triumphant,  agitated  the  lips 
of  the  Princess  Gandolphini,  who,  at  a 
moment  when  she  thought  herself  un- 
observed, gave  Rodolphe  a  look  which 
seemed  to  beg  his  pardon  for  having  de- 
ceived him  as  to  her  station.  When  the 
piece  was  finished,  Rodolphe  was  able  to 
get  to  the  prince,  who  graciously  con- 
ducted him  to  his  wife.  Rodolphe  went 
through  the  ceremony  of  an  official  pres- 
entation to  the  Prince  and  Princess  Colon- 
na  and  Fi^ancesca.  When  this  was  over, 
the  princess  had  to  take  part  in  the  fa- 
mous quatuor  'Mi  manca  la  voce,'  which 
was  executed  by  her,  by  Tinti,  by  Geno- 
vese  the  famous  tenor,  and  by  a  cele- 
brated Italian  prince  then  in  exile,  whose 
voice,  if  he  had  not  been  a  prince,  would 
have  made  him  one  of  the  princes  of  art. 

"'Sit  down  there,'  said  Francesca  to 
Rodolphe,  pointing  to  her  own  chair. 
'  Oime !  I  am  afraid  there  is  a  mistake 
in  the  names ;  for  the  last  few  moments 
I  have  been  the  Princess  Rodolphini.' 

"  This  was  said  with  a  grace,  a  charm,  a 
simplicity',  which  recalled  by  this  avowal, 
cloaked  in  a  jest,  the  happy  days  of  Ger- 
sau.  Rodolphe  experienced  the  delicious 
sensation  of  listening  to  the  voice  of  the 
woman  he  adored,  and  being  so  near  to 
her  that  his  cheek  was  almost  brushed 
by  the  stuff  of  her  dress  and  the  gauze  of 
her  scarf.  But  when  at  such  a  moment, 
'  Mi  manca  la  voce '  is  being  sung,  and 
this  quartet  is  executed  by  the  finest 
voices  of  Italy,  it  is  easy  to  understand 
how  tears  came  to  moisten  Rodolphe's 
eyes. 

"  In  love,  as  in  ever^-thing  else  perhaps, 
there  are  certain  facts,  infinitesimal  in 
themselves,  but  the  result  of  a  thousand 
trifling  circumstances  anterior,  and  whose 
significance  becomes  immense  when  re- 
ferred to  the  past  and  connected  with  the 
future.  You  have  felt  a  thousand  times 
the  worth  of  the  person  beloved  ;  but  a 
trifle — the  perfect  union  of  the  kindred 
souls  during  a  promenade  by  a  word,  by 
an  unexpected  proof  of  love — carries  the 
sentiment  to  its  highest  degree.   In  short, 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


265 


to  explain  this  moral  fact  by  an  image 
which,  from  the  first  ages  of  the  world, 
has  had  the  most  incontestable  success, 
there  are,  in  a  long  chain,  necessary 
points  of  junction,  at  which  the  cohesion 
is  stronger  than  in  the  series  of  rings. 
This  recognition  between  Rodolphe  and 
Francesca  during  this  evening,  in  the  face 
of  the  world,  was  one  of  those  supreme 
points  which  connect  tlie  future  with  the 
past,  which  rivet  more  strongly  on  the 
heart  real  attachments.  Perhaps  it  was 
of  these  sparse  rivets  that  Bossuet  spoke, 
when  he  compared  to  them  the  rarity  of 
the  happy  moments  of  our  life — he  whose 
love  was  so  ardent  and  so  secret. 

"  Next  to  the  pleasure  of  admiring  the 
beloved  object  comes  that  of  seeing  her 
admired  by  all.  Rodolphe  enjoyed  them 
both  at  once.  Love  is  a  treasure  of  recol- 
lections, and  although  that  of  Rodolphe 
was  already  full,  he  added  to  it  some 
precious  pearls — smiles  bestowed  aside 
on  him  alone,  furtive  glances,  inflections 
of  voice  in  singing  which  Francesca  cre- 
ated for  him,  but  which  made  the  Tinti 
pale  with  jealousy,  so  much  were  they 
applauded.  Accordingly,  all  his  power 
of  desire,  the  special  feature  of  his  char- 
acter, was  concentrated  on  the  lovely 
Roman,  who  became  unalterably  the 
source  and  the  object  of  all  his  thoughts 
and  all  his  actions.  Rodolphe  loved  as 
all  women  dream  of  being  loved,  with  a 
strength,  a  constancy,  a  cohesion,  which 
made  of  Francesca  the  very  substance  of 
his  heart.  He  felt  her  mingled  with  his 
blood  as  a  purer  blood,  with  his  soul  as  a 
more  perfect  soul.  She  would  henceforth 
imderlie  the  slightest  efforts  of  liis  life, 
like  the  golden  sand  of  the  Mediterranean 
under  the  water.  In  short,  the  slightest 
aspiration  of  Rodolphe  was  an  active 
hope. 

"  At  the  end  of  a  few  days  Francesca 
admitted  this  immense  love  ;  but  it  was 
so  natural,  so  thoroughlj^  mutual,  that 
she  was  not  surprised  at  it.  She  was 
worthy  of  it. 

"'What  is  there  surprising,'  said  she 
to  Rodolphe,  while  walking  with  him  on 
the  terrace  of  her  garden,  after  having 
surprised  one  of  those  movements  of  self- 


conceit  so  natural  to  the  French  in  the 
expression  of  their  sentiments — 'what  is 
there  marvelous  in  your  loving  a  young 
and  beautiful  woman,  who  is  artiste 
enough  to  be  able  to  earn  her  living  like 
the  Tinti,  and  who  is  able  to  gratify  your 
vanitj'?  Where  is  the  boor  who  would 
not  become  an  Amadis  ?  But  that  is  not 
the  question  between  us.  What  you  have 
got  to  do  is  to  love  with  constancy,  with 
persistence,  and  at  a  distance  for  years, 
with  no  other  pleasure  than  that  of  know- 
ing yourself  beloved.' 

•"  '  Alas  ! '  said  Rodolphe,  '  will  you  not 
consider  my  fidelity  destitute  of  merit, 
seeing  me  absorbed  by  the  toils  of  a  de- 
vouring ambition  ?  Do  you  think  I  should 
be  wUling  to  see  you  exchange  some  day 
the  grand  name  of  the  Princess  Gandol- 
phini  for  that  of  an  unknown  man?  I 
shall  strive  to  become  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  men  of  my  country,  to  be  rich, 
to  be  great,  so  that  you  may  be  as  proud 
of  my  name  as  of  your  own  name  of 
Colonna.' 

'•' '  I  should  be  very  sorry  not  to  see 
you  mth  these  sentiments  in  j^our  heart,' 
she  answered,  with  a  cliarming  smile. 
'  But  do  not  wear  yourself  out  with  the 
labors  of  ambition.  Keep  young.  They 
say  that  pohtics  soon  make  a  man  old,' 

'•'  The  rarest  quality  in  women  is  a  cer- 
tain gayety  which  docs  not  diminish  their 
tenderness.  Tliis  mingling  of  a  profound 
sentiment  with  the  gayety  of  youth  added 
at  this  moment  adorable  attractions  to 
Francesca.  Here  is  the  key  to  her  char- 
acter. She  laughs  and  grows  tender; 
she  gets  excited,  and  returns  to  delicate 
railleiy  with  an  impulsiveness  and  an 
ease  which  constitute  her  the  charming 
and  delicious  person  whose  reputation, 
indeed,  has  spread  far  beyond  Italy;  she 
conceals  muler  her  feminine  graces  a  pro- 
found ei-udition,  due  to  the  extremely 
monotonous  and  almost  monastic  life  she 
led  in  the  old  castle  of  the  Colonnas. 
This  I'ich  heiress  was  originally  destined 
to  the  cloister,  being  the  fourth  child  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess  Colonna,  but  the 
death  of  her  two  brothei-s  and  her  elder 
sisters  suddenly  drew  her  from  her  seclu- 
sion to  be  one  of  tlie  best  matches  in  the 


26(5 


Tilt:     HUMAX     COMEDY. 


Roman  States.  Her  elder  sister  having 
been  affianced  to  the  Prince  Gandolphini, 
ono  of  the  richest  landowners  of  Sicily, 
Francesca  was  given  to  him  so  as  not  to 
interfere  with  family  arrang-emeuts.  The 
Colonnas  and  the  Gandolphinis  had  al- 
ways intermarried.  From  nine  to  six- 
teen, Francesca,  educated  \iy  a  monsig- 
nore  of  the  family,  had  read  the  whole 
library  of  the  Colonnas,  to  keep  her  ar- 
dent imagination  occupied  bj'  the  study 
of  science,  art,  and  literature.  But  she 
acquired,  in  the  course  of  these  studies, 
that  taste  for  independence  and  liberal 
ideas  which  made  her  throw  herself,  as 
well  as  her  husband,  into  the  revolution. 
Rodolphe  did  not  yet  know  that,  without 
counting  five  living  languages,  Francesca 
knew  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew.  This 
charming  creature  had  admirably  com- 
prehended that  one  of  the  first  conditions 
of  erudition  in  a  woman  is  to  keep  it  care- 
fully concealed. 

"Rodolphe  remained  the  whole  winter 
at  Geneva.  This  winter  passed  like  a 
day.  When  the  spring  arrived,  notwitli- 
standing  the  exquisite  delight  arising 
from  the  society  of  a  woman  of  talent, 
prodigiously  learned,  young,  and  lively, 
the  lover  underwent  cruel  sufferings,  sup- 
ported, however,  with  courage,  but  which 
sometimes  showed  themselves  on  his  phy- 
siognomj-,  which  peeped  out  in  his  man- 
nei*s  and  conversation,  perhaps  because 
he  did  not  tliink  they  were  shared  by  her. 
At  times  he  was  irritated  while  admiring 
the  calmness  of  Francesca,  who,  like  the 
English,  seemed  to  take  a  pride  in  allow- 
ing no  expression  to  appear  on  her  face, 
whose  serenitj^  defied  love.  He  would 
have  had  her  agitated.  He  accused  her 
of  having  no  feeling,  believing  in  the 
prejudice  which  ascribes  to  the  Italian 
women   a  feverish  excitability. 

"'I  am  a  Roman,'  Francesca  gravelj' 
answered  him  one  day,  taking  seriously 
some  of  Rodolphc's  jesting  on  this  sub- 
ject. 

•'There  was  a  depth  in  the  accent  of 
this  answer  which  gave  it  the  appearance 
of  a  fierce  irony,  and  made  Rodolphe's 
heart  beat.  The  month  of  May  displayed 
the  treasures  of  its  youthful  verdure ;  the 


sun  at  times  had  as  much  strength  as  in 
the  middle  of  the  summer.  The  two 
lovers  were  then  leaning  on  a  stone 
balustrade  which,  at  a  part  of  the  ter- 
race where  the  ground  is  perpendicular 
to  the  lake,  surmounts  tlie  wall  of  a. 
staircase  by  which  you  descend  to  get 
into  a  boat.  From  the  neighboring  villa, 
which  has  a  nearly  similar  landing-place, 
gilded  out,  like  a  swan,  a  yawl,  with  its 
flaming  flag,  its  pavilion  with  crimson 
canopy,  beneath  which  a  charming  wo- 
man was  indolently  seated  on  red  cush- 
ions, with  fresh  flowers  in  her  hair, 
accompanied  by  a  young  man  dressed 
like  a  sailor,  who  rowed  with  all  the 
more  grace  that  he  was  under  the  eyes 
of  this  woman. 

'"They  are  happy!'  said  Rodolphe, 
with  a  bitter  accent.  '  Claire  de  Bour- 
gogne,  the  last  of  the  only  house  that 
could  rival  the  house  of  France — ' 

"  '  Oh,  she  is  of  a  bastard  branch ;  and, 
besides,  through  the  Avomen — ' 

"  'At  all  events,  she  is  the  Vicomtesse 
de  Beauseant,  and  did  not — ' 

"  'Hesitate,  you  mean,  to  bury  herself 
with  Monsieur  Gaston  de  Nueil,'  said  the 
daughter  of  the  Colonnas.  'She  is  only 
a  Frenchwoman,  and  I  am  an  Italian,  my 
dear  sir.' 

"  Francesca  quitted  the  balustrade, 
leaving  Rodolphe  there,  and  Avent  to 
the  end  of  the  terrace,  from  which  an 
immense  extent  of  the  lake  is  embraced. 
Seeing  her  walk  slowly,  Rodolphe  had  a 
suspicion  that  he  had  wounded  this  spirit, 
innocent  but  not  ignorant,  at  once  so 
proud  and  so  humble.  He  turned  cold. 
He  followed  Francesca,  who  signed  to 
him  to  leave  her  alone ;  but  he  took  no 
notice  of  the  admonition,  and  surprised 
her  in  the  act  of  drying  her  tears.  Tears 
from  such  a  resolute  nature  ! 

"  '  Francesca,'  said  he,  taking  her  hand, 
'  is  there  a  single  regret  in  your  heart  ?  ' 

"  She  kept  silence,  and  disengaged  her 
hand,  in  which  she  held  her  embroidered 
handkerchief,  to  dry  her  eyes  again. 

"  'Pardon  me,'  he  went  on  ;  and,  with 
a  sudden  impulse,  he  put  his  lips  to  her 
eyes  to  stop  her  tears  with  his  kisses. 

"  Francesca  was  not  even  aware  of  this 


ALBERT    SAV Alius. 


267 


passionate  movement,  so  violently  was 
she  ag-itated.  Rodolphe,  believing  in  her 
compliance,  grew  bolder  ;  he  seized  Fran- 
cesca  by  the  waist,  pressed  her  to  his 
lieart,  and  snatched  a  kiss.  But  she  dis- 
engaged herself  by  a  magnificent  move- 
ment of  offended  modesty,  and  at  two 
steps  off,  looking  at  him  without  anger, 
but  with  resolution  —  'Leave  here  to- 
night,'she  said  ;  'we  shall  not  see  each 
other  again  before  Naples.' 

"  Notwithstanding  the  severity  of  this 
order,  it  was  religiously  executed,  for 
Francesca  desired   it. 

"  On  his  return  to  Paris,  Rodolphe  found 
awaiting  him  the  portrait  of  tlie  Princess 
Gandolphini,  done  by  Schinner,  as  Schin- 
ner  can  paint  portraits.  This  artist  had 
passed  through  Geneva  on  his  waj'  to 
Italy.  As  he  had  positively  refused  to 
take  the  portraits  of  several  women,  Ro- 
dolphe did  not  believe  that  the  prince, 
who  was  excessively  desirous  of  his  wife's 
portrait,  would  be  able  to  vanquish  the 
repugnance  of  the  celebrated  painter;  but 
Francesca  had,  no  doubt,  fascinated  him, 
and  obtained  from  hiin  what  was  almost 
a  prodigy — an  original  portrait  for  Ro- 
dolphe and  a  copy  for  Emilio.  This  is 
what  he  learned  from  a  charming  and 
delicious  letter,  in  which  imagination 
made  itself  amends  for  the  restraint  im- 
posed by  the  religion  of  conventionalitj'. 
The  lover  answered  it.  Thus  began  an 
uninterrupted  correspondence  between 
Rodolphe  and  Francesca,  the  only  pleas- 
ure they  allowed  themselves. 

"Rodolphe,  the  prey  of  an  ambition 
legitimized  by  his  love,  immediately  set 
to  work.  He  sought  fortune  in  the  first 
place,  and  embarked  in  an  enterprise 
into  which  he  threw  all  his  abilities  and 
all  his  capital;  but  he  had  to  struggle 
with  the  inexperience  of  youth  against 
a  duplicity  which  triumphed  over  him. 
Three  years  were  lost  in  a  vast  enter- 
prise— three  years  of  effort  and  courage. 

"The  Villele  ministry  succumbed  at  the 
same  time  as  Rodolphe.  Immediately,  the 
intrepid  lover  resolved  to  demand  from 
politics  what  business  had  refused  him; 
but  before  venturing  into  the  storms  of 
this  carreer,  he  went,  wounded  and  suf- 


fering, to  have  his  wounds  healed  and  re- 
new his  courage,  to  Naples,  where  the 
Prince  and  Princess  Gandolphini  had  been 
recalled  and  restored  to  their  property  on 
the  accession  of  the  king.  In  the  middle 
of  his  struggle  it  was  a  repose  full  of 
bliss.  He  passed  three  months  at  the 
Villa  Gandolphini,  cradled  in  hope. 

"  Rodolphe  recommenced  the  edifice  of 
his  fortune.  Aln^ady  his  talents  had 
been  remarked  ;  he  was  about,  at  last,  to 
realize  the  hopes  of  his  ambition.  A  post 
of  eminence  had  been  promised  to  his  zeal, 
as  a  recompense  for  his  devotion  and  for 
services  rendered,  when  the  storm  of  Julj', 
1830,  broke  out  and  his  bark  foundered 
again. 

"She  and  God — these  are  the  only 
witnesses  of  the  most  courageous  efforts 
and  the  most  audacious  attempts  of  a 
young  man  endowed  with  abilities,  but 
to  whom,  hitherto,  the  aid  of  the  pro\i- 
dence  of  fools,  good  luck,  has  been  denied ; 
and  this  indefatigable  athlete,  sustained 
by  love,  is  about  to  recommence  fresh 
combats,  lighted  on  by  a  ray  of  affection 
and  a  constant  heart !  Lovers,  pray  for 
him ! " 

On  finishing  this  narrative,  Mademoi- 
selle de  Watteville  felt  her  cheeks  on  Ore ; 
fever  was  in  her  veins.  She  wept,  but 
with  rage.  This  tale,  inspired  by  the 
literature  of  the  day,  was  tlie  first  piece 
of  reading  of  the  kind  that  Rosalie  had 
been  permitted  to  devour.  Love  was 
painted  in  it — if  not  with  the  hand  of  a 
master,  at  least  hy  a  man  who  appeared 
to  relate  his  own  impressions;  and  the 
truth,  even  unskillfully  told,  must  always 
touch  a  virgin  heart.  This  was  the  se- 
cret of  the  terrible  agitation,  of  the  fever 
and  the  tears  of  Rosalie :  she  was  jealous 
of  Francesca  Colonna.  She  did  not  doubt 
the  sincerity'  of  this  poem.  Albert  had 
taken  a  pleasure  in  relating  the  birth  of 
his  passion,  while  concealing,  no  doubt, 
the  names,  and  perhaps  the  places.  Ros- 
alie was  seized  with  an  infernal  curiosity. 
What  woman  would  not,  like  her,  have 
wished  to  know  the  real  name  of  her 
rival?  For  she  loved  !  In  residing  these 
pages,  contagious  to  her,  She  had  said  to 


268 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


herself  the  solemn  word,  "  I  love  !  "  She 
loved  Albert,  and  she  felt  in  her  heart  a 
gnawing-  desire  to  dispute  him,  to  snatch 
hini  away  from  this  unknown  rival.  She 
rellectcd  that  she  did  not  know  music, 
and  that  she  was  not  handsome. 

"He  will  never  love  me,"  she  said  to 
herself.  This  word  i-edoubled  her  desire 
to  know  whether  she  was  not  mistaken — 
if  Albert  really  loved  an  Italian  princess, 
and  was  loved  by  her.  During-  this  fatal 
nig-lit,  the  spirit  of  rapid  decision  which 
distinguished  the  famous  Watteville  de- 
veloped itself  undiminished  in  his  heiress. 
She  conceived  some  of  those  extravag'ant 
plans  around  which,  indeed,  hovers  the 
imagination  of  all  young  girls,  when,  in 
the  midst  of  the  solitude  to  which  they 
are  confined  by  imprudent  mothers,  th.ey 
are  excited  by  a  capital  event  which  the 
s^'stem  of  compression  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected  has  not  been  able  to  fore- 
see or  to  prevent.  She  thought  of  de- 
scending with  a  ladder,  b^^  the  kiosk,  into 
the  garden  of  the  house  in  which  Albert 
lived — of  taking  advantage  of  the  advo- 
cate's sleep  to  look  through  his  window 
into  the  interior  of  his  cabinet.  She 
thought  of  writing  to  him.  She  thought 
of  bursting  the  bonds  of  Bisontine  society, 
by  introducing  Albert  into  the  salon  of 
the  Hotel  de  Rupt.  This  enterprise, 
which  would  have  appeared  the  heig-ht 
of  impossibility  to  the  Abbe  de  Grancey 
himself,  was  the  affair  of  an  idea. 

"  Ah !  "  said  she  to  herself,  "  my  father 
has  got  into  disputes  at  his  estate  of 
Rouxey ;  I  will  go  there  !  If  he  has  not 
gone  to  law,  I  will  make  him ;  and  then 
Ae  will  come  to  our  house,"  she  exclaimed, 
springing  from  her  bed  to  the  window,  to 
look  at  ihe  enchanted  light  which  illumi- 
nated Albert's  night. 

It  was  striking  one;  he  was  still  asleep. 

"  I  shall  see  liim  when  he  gets  up.  Per- 
haps he  will  come  to  the  Avindow." 

At  this  moment  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville was  the  witness  of  an  event  which 
must  place  in  her  hands  the  means  of  ar- 
riving at  a  knowledge  of  Albert's  secrets. 
By  the  light  of  the  moon,  she  perceived 
two  arms  stretched  out  from  the  kiosk, 
and  which  were    assisting  Jerome,   Al- 


bert's servant,  to  get  over  the  wall  and 
come  into  the  kiosk.  In  the  accomplice 
of  Jerome,  Rosalie  immediately  recog- 
nized Mariette,  the  ladj^'s-maid. 

"  Mariette  and  Jerome  !"  3:iid  she  to 
herself.  "  An  ugly  woman  like  Mariette  ! 
The^'  must  certainlj'^  be  ashamed  of  each 
other." 

If  Mariette  was  horridly  ugly  and  thir- 
ty-six years  old,  she  had  inherited  several 
pieces  of  land.  Having  been  seventeen 
years  in  the  service  of  Madame  de  Watte- 
ville, who  esteemed  her  much  on  accoupt 
of  her  devoutness,  her  honesty,  and  her 
long  standing  in  the  house,  she  had  no 
doubt  economized  and  invested  her  wages 
and  perquisites.  Now,  at  the  rate  of 
about  ten  louis  a  year,  she  must  be  worth, 
reckoning  the  compound  interest  and  her 
inheritances,  about  ten  thousand  francs. 
In  the  eyes  of  Jerome,  ten  thousand 
francs  changed  the  laws  of  optics :  he 
saw  in  Mariette  a  fine  figure.  He  did 
not  see  the  holes  and  seams  a  frightful 
small-pox  had  left  in  her  plain,  flat  face ; 
for  him  the  distorted  mouth  was  straight ; 
and  since  the  advocate  Savaron,  by  tak- 
ing him  into  his  service,  had  brought  him 
close  to  the  Hotel  de  Rupt,  he  had  laid 
regular  siege  to  the  devout  lady's-maid, 
who  was  as  stiff  and  prudish  as  her  mis- 
tress, and,  like  all  ugly  old  mil  ids,  more 
exacting  than  the  best-looking  girls. 

If  the  noctm-nal  scene  of  the  kiosli  is 
now  made  intelligible  to  intelligent  people, 
it  was  not  at  all  so  to  Rosalie,  who,  never- 
theless, acquired  the  most  dangerous  of 
all  knowledge,  that  taught  by  a  bad  ex- 
ample. A  mother  brings  up  her  daughter 
severely,  keeps  her  under  her  wings  for 
seventeen  years,  and  in  an  hour  a  servant 
destroys  this  long  and  arduous  toil,  some- 
times hj  a  word,  often  by  a  gesture ! 
Rosalie  went  to  bed  again,  not  without 
reflecting  on  all  the  advantages  she  might 
derive  from  her  discovery.  The  next 
morning,  going  to  mass  accompanied  by 
Mariette  (the  baroness  was  indisposed), 
Rosalie  took  her  maid's  arm,  which  con- 
siderably astonished  the  Comtoise. 

"Mariette,"  she  said  to  her,  "is  Je- 
rome in  his  master's  confidence  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,  mademoiselle." 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


269 


"Don't  play  the  innocent  with  me," 
answered  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville, 
sharply.  "You  allowed  him  to  embrace 
you  last  night  in  the  kiosk.  I  am  no 
longer  astonished  at  your  so  highly  ap- 
proving of  my  mother's  plans  for  its 
embellishment. ' ' 

Rosalie  felt  the  tremor  which  seized 
Mariette  by  that  of  her  arm.    , 

"I  do  not  mean  you  any  harm,"  said 
Rosalie  in  continuation.  "  Reassure  your- 
self;  I  will  not  say  a  word  to  my  mother, 
and  j'ou  can  see  Jerome  as  often  as  you 
like." 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  answered  Mari- 
ette, "it  is  all  quite  right  and  proper. 
Jerome  has  no  other  intentions  than  to 
marry  me," 

"  But  wliy  do  you  have  meetings  in  the 
middle  of  the  night,  then  ?  " 

Mariette,  floored,  could  not  find  an 
answer. 

"  Listen,  Mariette.  I  mj'self  am  in  love 
also  !  I  love  in  secret  and  all  alone.  I  am, 
after  all,  the  only  child  of  my  father  and 
mother ;  so  you  have  more  to  hope  for 
from  me  than  from  anybody  else  in  the 
world." 

"  Certainly,  mademoiselle,  j'ou  may 
reckon  on  us  for  life  and  death,"  cried 
Mariette,  delighted  at  this  unforeseen 
result. 

"  In  the  first  place,  silence  for  silence," 
said  Rosalie.  "  I  do  not  want  to  marry 
Monsieur  de  Soulas ;  but  I  require,  and 
absolutelj',  a  certain  thing.  My  protection 
is  only  to  be  obtained  at  this  price." 

"  What  ?  "  asked  Mariette. 

"  I  want  to  see  the  letters  Monsieur 
Savaron  sends  to  the  post  by  Jerome." 

"But  what  for?"  asked  Mariette, 
alarmed. 

"Oh,  only  to  read  them;  and  you  will 
put  them  into  the  post  yourself  afterw&rd. 
It  will  only  delay  them  a  little,  that  is 
all." 

At  this  moment  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville and  Mariette  entered  the  church,  and 
each  of  them  indulged  in  her  reflections 
instead  of  reading  the  ordinary  of  the 
mass. 

"Mj'  God  !  how  many  sins  are  there  in 
all  this  ?  "  said  Mariette  to  herself. 


Rosalie,  whose  mind,  and  head,  and 
heart  were  upset  by  the  reading  of  the 
tale,  looked  upon  it,  at  last,  as  a  sort  of 
history  written  for  her  rival.  By  dint  of 
reflecting,  as  children  do,  on  the  same 
thing,  she  eventually  thought  that  the 
"Revue  de  TEst  "  must  be  sent  to  Al- 
bert's beloved . 

"Oh  !  "  she  said  to  herself,  on  her  knees, 
her  head  buried  in  her  hands,  and  in  the 
attitude  of  a  person  absorbed  in  prayer, 
"  oh,  how  am  I  to  get  my  father  to  exam- 
ine the  list  of  the  people  to  whom  this 
review  is  sent? " 

After  breakfast,  she  walked  round  the 
garden  with  hei-  father,  coaxing  him,  and 
got  him  into  the  kiosk. 

"Do  30a  think,  dear  old  papa,  that  our 
'  Revue  '  is  sent  abroad  ?  " 

"  It  has  only  just  started." 

"Well,  I  bet  it  is." 

"  It  is  scarcely  possible." 

"  Go  and  see,  and  take  down  the  names 
of  the  foreign  subscribers." 

Two  hours  afterward.  Monsieur  de 
WatteviHe  said  to  his  daughter,  "  I  am 
right ;  there  is  not  yet  a  single  subscriber 
in  foreign  countries.  They  hope  to  have 
some  at  Neuchatel,  at  Berne,  and  at  Ge- 
neva. They  do  send  a  copy  to  Italy,  but 
gnitis,  to  a  Milanese  ladj',  at  her  country 
house  on  the  Lago  Maggiore  at  Belgirate." 

"  Her  name  ?  "  said  Rosalie,  eagerly. 

"The  Duchess  of  Argaiolo-" 

"Do  you  know  her,  father?  " 

"  I  have  heard  of  her.  She  is  Princess 
Soderini  by  birth.  She  is  a  Florentine,  a 
very  great  Indy,  and  quite  as  rich  as  her 
husband,  who  possesses  one  of  the  finest 
fortunes  in  Lombardy.  Their  viUa  on  the 
Lago  Maggiore  is  one  of  the  curiosities  of 
Italy." 

Two  days  later,  Mariette  handed  the 
following  letter  to  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville :— 

Albert  Savaron  to  Leopold  Hannequin. 

"  Well,  3'es,  my  dear  friend,  I  am  at 
Besancon,  while  ^'ou  thought  I  was  trav- 
eling. I  would  not  tell  you  anj'thing  until 
the  moment  when  success  was  beginning, 
and  it  has  dawned.  Yes,  dear  Leopold, 
after    so  many   abortive    enterprises    in 


270. 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


which  I  have  expended  the  purest  of  my 
blood,  in  -which  I  have  thrown  away  so 
many  eflorts,  consumed  so  much  courag-e, 
I  have  resolved  to  do  like  you — to  take 
the  beaten  path,  the  high-road,  the  long- 
est and  the  surest.  What  a  start  I  see 
you  give  on  your  notarial  chair !  But  do 
not  believe  that  there  is  anj^thing  of  any 
sort  changed  in  my  inner  life,  the  secret 
of  which  is  known  to  you  alone  in  the 
world,  and  with  the  reserve  imposed  by 
her.  I  did  not  tell  you  so,  my  friend,  but 
I  was  horriblj'^  wornout  at  Paris.  The 
result  of  the  first  enterjirise,  on  which  I 
placed  all  my  hopes,  and  which  turned 
out  unsuccessful  through  the  profound 
rascality  of  my  two  partners,  who  com- 
bined-to  cheat  and  plunder  me — me,  to 
whose  activity  evcrj^thing  was  due  ! — 
made  me  give  up  the  pursuit  of  pecuniary 
fortune,  after  having  thus  wasted  three 
years  of  my  life,  of  which  one  was  spent 
in  lawsuits.  Perhaps  I  should  have  come 
worse  off  if  I  had  not  been  obliged  to  study 
the  law  at  twenty  years  of  age.  I  have 
wished  to  become  a  politician,  sofely  to  be 
some  day  included  in  an  edict  on  the  peer- 
age under  the  title  of  Count  Albert  Sa- 
varon  de  Savarus,  and  to  revive  in  France 
a  great  name  which  has  become  extinct  in 
Belgium,  although  lam  neither  legitimate 
nor  legitimized . " 

"Ah!  I  was  sure  of  it;  he  is  of  noble 
blood  ! "  exclaimed  Rosalie,  dropping  the 
letter. 

"  You  knew  how  hard  I  studied — what 
^  an  obscure  but  devoted  and  useful  jour- 
nalist, what  an  admirable  secretary,  I 
was  to  the  statesman,  who,  on  his  part, 
was  faithful  to  me  in  1829.  Thrust  back 
again  into  obscurity  by  the  revolution  of 
July,  just  as  my  name  was  beginning  to 
emerge — at  the  moment  when,  as  a  maitre 
des  requetes,  I  was  about  at  last  to  be- 
come a  part,  as  a  necessary  wheel,  of  the 
political  machine— I  committed  the  blun- 
der of  remaining  faithful  to  the  van- 
quished, of  combating  for  them,  without 
them.  Ah  !  why  was  I  only  three  and 
thirty,  and  how  was  it  I  didn't  beg 
you  to  render  me  eligible  !  I  concealed 
from  you  all  my  devotedness  and  my 
perils.     What  could  I  do  ?    I  had  faith. 


We  should  not  have  agreed.  Ten  months 
ago,  while  you  always  saw  me  so  gay  and 
happy,  writing  my  political  articles,  I 
was  in  despair.  I  found  m.yself,  at  seven 
and  thirtjs  with  two  thousand  francs  for 
m3'  whole  fortune,  without  the  least  celeb- 
rity-, having  just  failed  in  a  noble  enter- 
prise, a  dailj'  paper  which  only  satisfied  a 
want  of  the  future,  instead  of  addressmg 
itself  to  the  passions  of  the  moment.  I 
no  longer  knew  what  to  do;  and  I  felt  my 
own  powers  !  I  went  about,  sad  and  de- 
jected, in  the  solitary-  places  of  that  Paris 
which  had  deserted  me,  thinking  of  my 
disappointed  ambitions,  but.  without  aban- 
doning them.  Oh,  what  letters,  stamped 
with  rage,  did  I  not  write  then  to  her, 
mj'  second  conscience,  my  other  self  !  At 
times  I  said  to  myself, '  Why  have  I  made 
out  so  vast  a  prog-ramme  for  my  life  ? 
Whj'  desire  all  ?  Why  not  await  happi- 
ness while  devoting  myself  to  some  quasi- 
mechanical  occupation  ? ' 

"  I  cast  my  eyes  then  on  a  humbh;  ap- 
pointment by  which  I  could  get  a  living. 
I  was  about  to  have  the  management  of 
a  newspaper  under  an  editor  who  did  not 
know  much,  an  ambitious  man  of  wealth, 
when  I  was  seized  with  terror.  '  Would 
she  accept  for  her  husband  a  lover  who 
had  sunk  so  low  ?  '  I  said  to  myself.  This 
i-eflection  sent  me  back  again  to  two  and 
twenty. 

"  Oh,  dear  Leopold,  how  the  soul  wears 
itself  out  in  tliese  perplexities !  What 
must  the  caged  eagles  suffer  then,  the 
imprisoned  lions  ?  They  suffer  all  that 
Napoleon  suffered,  not  at  St.  Helena,  but 
on  the  quaA'  of  the  Tuileries,  on  the  10th 
of  August,  when  he  saw  Louis  XVL  de- 
fending himself  so  badly — he  who  knew 
how  to  put  down  sedition,  as  he  afterward 
did  on  the  same  spot,  in  Vendemiaire. 
Well,  ray  life  has  been  this  day's  suffer- 
ings spread  over  four  years.  How  many 
speeches  to  the  Chamber  have  I  not  de- 
livered to  the  deserted  alleys  of  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne  ?  These  useless  improvisa- 
tions have  at  least  sharpened  my  tongue, 
and  accustomed  my  mind  to  put  its  ideas 
into  words.  During  these  secret  torments 
j'ou  were  getting  married,  you  were  com- 
pleting the  payment  for  your  business, 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


271 


and  j^ou  were  becoming  adjoint  to  the 
mayor  of  your  arrondissement,  after  hav- 
ing won  the  cross  by  getting  wounded 
at  St.  Merri. 

'•  Listen  I  When  I  was  quite  a  little 
fellow,  :md  tormented  the  cock-chafers, 
there  was  a  movement  of  these  poor  in- 
sects which  almost  gave  me  the  fever. 
It  was  when  I  saw  them  making  repeated 
efforts  to  t;ike  wing,  but  without  being 
able  to  fly,  although  they  succeeded  in 
moving  their  wings.  We  used  to  say, 
'  They  are  counting!'  Was  it  sympathy  ? 
Was  it  a  vision  of  the  future?  Oh,  to 
spread  one's  wings,  and  not  to  be  able  to 
fly  !  That  bus  been  my  fate  ever  since 
the  splendid  enterprise  with  which  the^^ 
disgusted  me,  but  which  has  since  en- 
riched four  families. 

'•  In  short;  seven  months  ago,  I  resolved 
to  make  myself  a  name  at  the  bar  of 
Paris,  seeing  what  openings  had  been 
left  by  the  promotion  of  so  many  barris- 
ters to  high  offices.  But,  remembering 
the  rivalries  I  had  already  observed  in 
the  bosom  of  the  press,  and  how  difficult 
it  is  to  get  on  in  a  career  of  any  sort  in 
Paris,  the  arena  where  so  many  cliam- 
pions  encounter,  I  took  a  I'esolution  cruel 
for  myself,  but  of  sure  effect,  and  perhaps 
more  rapid  than  any  other.  You  had 
thoroug'lily  explained  to  me,  in  our  con- 
versations, the  constitution  of  society  at 
Besancon ;  the  impossibility  of  a  stranger 
getting  on  there,  causing  the  slightest 
sensation,  marrying,  penetrating  into 
society,  or  succeeding  in  anything  what- 
ever. It  was  there  I  resolved  to  go  and 
plant  my  flag,  reasonably  thinking  that 
I  should  there  escape  competition,  and 
find  myself  the  only  one  secretly  canvass- 
ing for  election.  The  Comtois  will  not 
receive  the  stranger ;  the  stranger  will 
not  receive  tliem.  They  refuse  to  admit 
him  into  tlieir  salons ;  he  will  never  go 
into  them.  He  will  never  show  himself 
anywhere,  not  even  in  the  streets  !  But 
there  is  a  class  which  elects  members ;  it 
is  the  commercial  class.  I  will  specially 
study  "commercial  questions,  which  I 
know  something  of  already.  I  will  gain 
causes:  I  will  arrange  differences;  I  will 
become  the  first  advocate  of  Besancon. 


Later  on,  I  will  start  a  '  Review, '  in  which 
I  will  defend  the  interests  of  the  province, 
or  I  will  create,  support,  or  revive  them. 
When  I  have  acquired,  one  by  one,  enough 
votes,  my  nam'e  will  come  out  of  the  urn. 
They  will  disdain  for  some  time  the  un- 
known barrister,  but  something  will  hap- 
pen to  bring  him  to  light — a  gratuitous 
speech  in  court,  an  affair  the  other  barris- 
ters will  not  undertake.  If  I  once  speak, 
I  am  sure  of  success. 

"Well,  my  dear  Leopold,  I  packed  up 
my  library  in  eleven  boxes,  I  bought  the 
law-books  which  might  be  useful  to  me, 
and  put  the  whole,  as  well  as  my  furni- 
ture, on  the  road  to  Besancon.  I  took  out 
my  certificates,  I  made  up  a  thousand 
crowns,  and  came  to  wish  you  good-by. 
The  mail  dropped  me  at  Besancon,  where 
in  the  space  of  three  daj's.  I  selected  a 
small  suite  of  apartments  looking  on  to 
a  garden.  I  arranged  sumptuously  the 
mysterious  cabinet,  in  which  I  spend  my 
days  and  nights,  in  which  shines  the  por^ 
trait  of  my  idol,  of  her  to  whom  my  life 
is  consecrated,  who  absorbs  it,  who  is  the 
source  of  vny  efforts,  the  secret  of  my 
courage,  the  cause  of  mj'  talent.  Then, 
when  the  furniture  and  books  arrived,  I 
took  an  intelligent  servant,  and  remained 
for  five  months  like  a  dormouse  in  the 
winter. 

"  I  had  been  inscribed  on  the  list  of 
advocates.  At  last,  I  was  officially  ap- 
pointed to  defend  a  poor  devil  at  the  as- 
sizes, no  doubt  in  order  to  hear  me  speak, 
at  all  events,  once  !  One  of  the  most  in- 
fluential merchants  of  Besancon  was  on 
the  jury;  he  had  a  complicated  case  going 
on.  I  used  all  my  efforts  in  this  cause  to 
impress  this  man,  and  I  had  the  most 
complete  success  in  the  world.  My  client 
was  innocent ;  I  had  the  two  culprits,  who 
were  among  the  witnesses,  dramatically 
arrested.  Even  the  court  joined  in  the 
admiration  of  the  public.  I  was  able  to 
save  the  self-love  of  thejugre  d' instruction 
by  showing  the  almost  impossibility  of  de- 
tecting a  plot  so  well  laid.  I  got  my  great 
merchant  for  a  client,  and  I  gained  hiui 
his  cause.  The  chapter  of  the  cathedral 
selected  me  for  counsel  in  a  heavj'  case 
with  the  town,  which  had  been  going  on 


272 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


for  four  years ;  I  won  it.  In  these  cases, 
I  became  the  g'reatest  advocate  of  Franche 
Comte.  But  I  enshroud  my  life  in  the 
most  profound  mystery,  and  thus  conceal 
my  pretensions.  I  have  contracted  habits 
which  relieve  me  from  accepting  anj'  in- 
vitation. I  can  only  be  consulted  from 
six  to  eight  in  the  morning- ;  I  go  to  bed 
after  dinner,  and  worlv  during  the  night. 

"The  vicar-general,  a  man  of  intelli- 
gence and  great  influence,  who  confided  to 
me  the  cause  of  the  chapter,  already  lost 
in  the  first  stage,  naturall3'  spoke  of  grati- 
tude. 'Sir,' I  said  to  him,  'I  will  win 
your  cause ;  but  I  want  no  fee.  I  want 
more '  (sudden  start  of  the  abbe) .  '  Know 
that  I  lose  enormously  by  appearing  as 
the  adversary  of  the  town.  I  came  here 
in  order  to  go  back  a  deputy ;  I  only  take 
commeix'ial  cases  because  the  commercial 
men  return  the  members,  and  they  will 
mistrust  me  if  I  plead  for  the  priests— 
for  you  are  the  priests  to  them.  If  I  ac- 
cept your  case,  it  is  because  I  was,  in 
1828,  private  secretary  to  such  a  min- 
istry '  (fresh  movement  of  astonishment 
on  the  part  of  my  abbe) — '  maitre  des 
requetes,  under  the  name  of  Albert  de 
Savarus  '  (another  movement).  'I  have 
remained"  faithful  to  monarchical  prin- 
ciples, but  as  you  do  not  possess  a  ma- 
jority in  Besancon,  I  must  acquire  votes 
among  the  tradesmen.  Therefore,  the 
fee  I  ask  of  you  is  the  votes  that  you 
maj'  be  able  to  procure  me  at  the  op- 
portune moment  and  in  secret.  Let  us 
keep  each  other's  secret,  and  I  will  plead, 
gratis,  all  the  affairs  of  all  the  priests  in 
the  diocese.  Not  a  word  of  my  antece- 
dents, and  let  us  be  true  to  each  other.' 

"  When  he  came  to  thank  me,  he  handed 
me  a  five  hundred  franc  note,  and  said  in 
my  ear,  'The  votes  still  hold  good.'  In 
the  five  conferences  we  have  had,  I  have 
made  a  friend,  I  believe,  of  the  vicar-gen- 
eral. Now,  overwhelmed  with  business, 
I  only  undertake  the  merchants',  saying 
that  commercial  questions  are  my  special- 
t}'.  These  tactics  connect  me  with  the 
commercial  men,  and  allow  me  to  court 
the  influential  people.  Thus,  all  goes 
well.  In  a  few  months  I  shall  have 
found  in  Besancon  a  house  to  buy,  which 


will  give  me  the  electoral  qualification, 
I  reckon  on  you  to  lend  me  the  capital 
necessary  for  this  purcliase.  If  I  die,  if  I 
fail,  there  would  not  be  loss  enough  to  be 
a  consideration  between  us.  The  rents 
will  pay  you  the  interest ;  and,  besides, 
I  shall  take  care  to  wait  for  a  good  op- 
portunity, so  that  you  may  not  lose  any- 
thing by  this  necessar\'  mortgage. 

"Ah!  my  dear  Leopold,  never  did 
gambler,  having  the  remains  of  his  fort- 
une in  his  pocket,  and  playing  with  it 
at  the  Cercle  des  Strangers,  in  one  last 
nightfrom  which  he  will  rise  either  rich  or 
ruined,  feel  in  his  ears  the  perpetual  sing- 
ing, on  his  hands  the  nervous  dampness, 
in  his  head  tlie  fevered  agitation,  in  his 
body  the  internal  tremors,  that  I  experi- 
ence every  day  while  playing  my  last 
stake  in  the  game  of  ambition.  Alas  ! 
my  dear  and  only  friend,  I  have  been 
fighting  now  for  nearly  ten  years.  This 
combat  with  men  and  things,  in  which  I 
have  incessaijtly  exerted  all  ni}-  strength 
and  all  my  energy,  in  which  I  have  so 
worn  out  the  springs  of  desire,  has  under- 
mined me,  so  to  speak,  internally.  With 
all  the  appearance  of  health  and  strength, 
I  feel  myself  ruined.  Every  day  carries 
away  a  shred  of  my  inner  life ;  at?  each 
new  elTort,  I  feel  that  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  repeat  it.  I  have  no  more  strength 
or  power  left,  except  for  happiness,  and  if 
that  does  not  come  and  place  its  crown  of 
roses  on  my  head,  the  me  I  am  will  exist 
no  longer.  I  shall  become  a  ruined  ob- 
ject ;  I  should  no  longer  desire  anj-thing 
in  the  world,  nor  wish  to  be  anj^hing  in 
it.  You  know  that  power  and  glory,  the 
immense  moral  fortune  I  pursue,  is  only 
secondary  ;  it  is  for  me  the  means  of  hap- 
piness, the  pedestal  of  my  idol. 

"To  expire  on  reaching  the  goal,  like 
the  ancient  runner ;  to  see  fortune  and 
death  arrive  together  at  the  threshold ; 
to  obtain  the  object  of  our  love  when  love 
is  extinct ;  to  possess  no  longer  the  power 
of  enjojonent,  when  we  have  earned  the 
means  of  happiness — oh,  how  many  men 
have  undergone  this  destiny  ! 

"  There  is  certainly  a  moment  when 
Tantalus  stops,  folds  his  arms,  and  de- 
fies the  infernals,  rejecting  his  part  of 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


273 


an  eternal  dupe.  I  should  be  at  this 
l)omt  if  anything  were  to  upset  nw  plans ; 
if,  after  having  bowed  myself  to  the  dust 
of  the  proAince,  having-  crawled  like  a 
hungiy  tiger  round  these  merchants, 
these  electors,  to  get  their  votes  ;  if, 
after  having  worked  up  dry  cases,  having 
given  my  time — a  time  that  I  might  have 
spent  on  the  Lago  Maggiore,  looking  at 
the  waters  she  looks  at,  reposing  under 
lier  eyes,  listening  to  her  voice— I  did  not 
bound  to  the  tribune,  to  conquer  there  the 
glory  that  must  surround  the  name  which 
is  to  succeed  that  of  Argaiolo.  More  than 
that,  Leopold  ;  there  are  days  when  I 
feel  a  vaporous  languor ;  a  mortal  disgust 
rises  from  the  depths  of  my  soul,  above 
all  when,  in  long  reveries,  I  have  plunged 
by  anticipation  into  the  midst  of  the  joys 
of  happy  love !  Does  desire,  then,  only 
inspire  us  with  a  certain  dose  of  strength, 
^  and  will  it  perish  under  a  too  great  effu- 
sion of  its  substance  ?  After  all,  at  this 
moment  my  life  is  fair,  lighted  on  b^' 
faith,  bj'  work,  and  by  love.  Adieu,  my 
friend  ;  I  embrace  your  children,  and  j'ou 
will  recall  to  the  recollection  of  your 
excellent  wife  Your  Albert." 

Rosalie  read  this  letter  twice  over,  and 
its  general  sense  was  engraved  on  her 
heart.  Siie  penetrated  suddenly-  into  the 
previous  life  of  Albert,  for  her  quick  in- 
telligence explained  its  details  and  enabled 
her  to  take  in  its  whole  extent.  By  com- 
paring this  confidence  with  the  tale  pub- 
lished in  the  "Review,"  she  understood 
Albert  thoroughly.  She  natui'ally  ex- 
agg'erated  the  proportions,  already  so 
grand,  of  this  noble  soul  and  this  power- 
^  ful  will  :  and  her  love  for  Albert  became 
then  a  passion  whose  violence  was  in- 
creased by  all  the  force  of  her  youth,  by 
the  dullness  of  her  solitude,  hy  the  secret 
energy  of  her  character.  To  love  is  an 
effect  of  the  law  of  nature  in  a  young 
girl,  but  when  her  longing  for  affection 
is  fixed  on  an  extraordinary  man,  it  is 
mingled  with  the  enthusiasm  which  over- 
flows in  youthful  hearts.  Accordingly, 
ilademoiselle  de  Watteville  arrived  in  a 
few  days  at  a  quasi-morbid  and  very 
dangerous  phase  of  amatory'  excitement. 


The  baroness  was  very  satisfied  with  her 
daughter,  who,  under  the  empire  of  her 
profound  preoccupation,  no  longer  re- 
sisted her,  appeared  devoted  to  her  vari- 
ous feminine  occupations,  and  realized  her 
beau  ideal  of  an  obedient  daughter. 

The  barrister  spoke  two  or  three  times 
a  week.  Although  overwhelmed  with 
business,  he  contrived  to  appear  in  court, 
to  conduct  the  commercial  litigation  and 
the  "Review,"  and  remained  in  a  pro- 
found mystery-,  comprehending  that  the 
more  his  influence  was  silent  and  con- 
cealed, the  more  real  it  would  be.  But  he 
neglected  no  means  of  success,  studying 
the  list  of  Bisontine  electors  and  discover- 
ing their  interests,  their  characters,  their 
various  friendships,  and  their  antipathies. 
Did  ever  a  cardinal  who  wanted  to  be  pope 
take  so  much  trouble  ? 

One  evening,  Mariette,  when  she  came 
to  dress  Rosalie  for  a  soiree  brought  her, 
not  without  groaning  over  this  abuse  of 
confidence,  a  letter  whose  address  made 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  tremble,  and 
turn  pale,  and  blush. 

A  Madame  la  Duchesse  d' Argaiolo, 
Nee  Princesse  Soderini, 
a  Belgirate, 

Lac  Majeur, 

lUdie. 

This  address  fiashed  on  her  eyes  as  the 
Mane,  Thecel,  Fhares,  must  have  flashed 
on  the  eyes  of  Belshazzar.  After  having 
hidden  the  letter,  Rosalie  went  down  to  go 
with  her  mother  to  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court's,  and  dm-ing  the  whole  of  this 
eternal  evening  she  was  assailed  by  re- 
morse and  scruples.  She  had  already  felt 
shame  at  having  violated  the  secrecy  of 
Albert's  letter  to  Leopold.  She  had  asked 
herself  several  times  whether,  knowing 
this  crime,  infamous  inasmuch  as  it  was 
necessarily  unpunished,  the  noble  Albert 
could  have  an\'  esteem  for  her.  Her  con- 
science energeticallj^  answered  her,  "No  I" 
She  had  expiated  her  fault  by  doing  self- 
imposed  penance.  She  fasted  ;  she  morti- 
fied hei-self  by  remaining  on  her  knees, 
with  her  arms  crossed,  antl  saying  prayers 
for  several  hours.  She  had  compelled 
Mariette  to  the  same  acts  of  repentance. 


274 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


The  truest  asceticism  mingled  with  her 
passion,  and  rendered  it  all  the  more 
dangiTous. 

••  Shall  I  read  or  shall  I  not  read  the 
letter?  "  she  asked  herself  while  listening 
to  the  little  De  Chavoncourts.  One  was 
sixteen,  and  the  other  seventeen  and  a 
half.  Rosalie  looked  upon  her  two  friends 
as  little  girls,  because  thcj'  were  not 
secretly  in  love.  '''  If  I  read  it,"  she  said 
to  lierself,  after  having  vibrated  for  an 
liour  between  yes  or  no,  '•  it  will  certainly 
he  the  last.  Since  I  have  done  so  much 
to  know  what  he  writes  to  his  friend,  why 
should  I  not  know  what  he  writes  to  her  ? 
If  it  is  a  horrible  crime,  is  it  not  a  proof 
of  love?  Oh,  Albert,  am  I  not  your 
wife  ?  " 

When  Rosalie  was  in  bed,  she  opened 
the  letter,  dated  from  day  to  day,  so  as 
to  give  the  duchess  a  faithful  picture  of 
the  life  and  sentiments  of  Albert. 

"35th. 

"My  dear  Life!— All  goes  well.  To 
the  conquests  I  had  already  made  I  have 
just  added  a  precious  one;  I  have  rendered 
a  service  to  one  of  the  most  influential  per- 
sonages at  the  elections.  Lilce  the  critics, 
who  make  reputations  without  ever  being 
able  to  make  one  for  themselves,  he 
makes  deputies  without  ever  being  able 
to  become  one.  The  good  man  wished 
to  pi'ove  his  gratitude  at  a  cheap  rate, 
almost  without  untying  his  purse-string, 
by  asking  me,  '  Would  you  like  to  go  into 
the  Chamber  ?  I  can  get  you  elected  a 
deputy.'  '  If  I  were  to  resolve  to  embrace 
a  political  career,'  I  answered  him  very 
hypocritically,  '  it  would  be  to  devote  my- 
self to  the  Comte,  which  I  love,  and 
where  I  am  appreciated.'  'Well,  we  will 
decide  you,  and  we  shall  have  an  influence 
in  the  Chamber  through  j'ou,  for  you  will 
shine  there.' 

"  Thus,  my  beloved  angel,  whatever 
^■ou  may  say,  my  perseverance  will  be 
crowned  with  success.  In  a  little  while, 
I  shall  speak  from  the  summit  of  the 
French  tribune  to  my  country  and  to 
Europe.  My  name  will  be  wafted  to  you 
by  the  hundred  voices  of  the  French 
press. 


"  Yes,  as  you  tell  me,  I  came  to  Bes- 
ancon  old,  and  Besancon  has  aged  me 
still  more  ;  but,  like  Sextus  V.,  I  shall  be 
young  on  the  morrow  of  my  election.  I 
shall  enter  on  my  true  life,  into  my  proper 
sphere.  Shall  we  not  be  then  on  an  equal- 
ity ?  The  Count  Savaron  de  Savarus, 
ambassador  to  I  don't  know  where,  may 
surelj'  marry  a  Princess  Soderini,  widow 
of  the  Duke  d'Argaiolo-.  Triumph  brings 
back  3'outh  to  men  fortifietl  by  inces.sant 
combats  ?  Oh,  my  life,  with  what  joy  did 
I  rush  from  my  library  to  my  cabinet,  to 
your  dear  portrait,  to  which  I  told  my 
progress  before  writing-  to  you  !  Yes,  my 
owH  votes,  those  of  the  vicar-general, 
those  of  the  people  I  shall  oblige,  and 
those  of  this  client,  already  assure  my 
election. 

"  26th. 

"  We  have  entered  on  the  twelfth  year 
since  the  happy  night  when,  by  a  look,  the 
fair  duchess  ratified  the  promises  of  the 
proscribed  Francesca.  Ah  !  dearest,  you 
are  thirty -two ;  I  am  thirty-five ;  the 
good  duke  is  seventy-seven — that  is  to 
say,  his  age  is  ten  years  more  than  our 
two — and  he  is  still  in  good  health.  I 
have  nearly  as  much  patience  as  love ; 
and,  besides,  I  want  a  few  years  more  to 
raise  my  fortune  to  the  height  of  your 
name.  You  see,  I  am  gay  ;  I  joke  to-day. 
Such  is  the  effect  of  hope.  Sadness  or 
gayety,  everything  comes  from  j'ou.  The 
hope  of  getting  on  always  brings  me  back 
to  the  morrow  of  the  day  I  saw  you  for 
the  first  time,  in  which  my  life  became 
attached  to  yours,  like  the  earth  to  the 
sun.  Qual  pianto  these  eleven  years,  for 
it  is  the  twenty-sixth  of  December,  the 
anniversary^  of  my  arrival  at  your  villa  on 
the  Lake  of  Constance.  For  eleven  years 
now  I  have  been  bewailing  myself,  and 
j'^ou  shining  above  me  like  a  star  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  mortal. 

"  27th. 

"  No,  dearest,  do  not  go  to  Milan  ;  stay 
at  Belgirate.  Milan  frightens  me.  I  do 
not  like  the  abominable  Milanese  habit  of 
chatting  every  evening  at  the  Scala  with 
a  dozen  people,  among  whom  it  would  be 
singular  if  one  did  not  saj'  some  sweet 
thinsrs  to  vou.     For  me,  solitude  is  like 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


275 


the  piece  of  amber,  in  the  bosom  of  which 
an  insect  lives  eternally  in  its  unchang'e- 
able  beauty.  The  body  and  soul  of  a 
woman  remain  thus  pure  and  in  the  sym- 
metry of  their  youth.  Is  it  the  Tedeschi 
tliat  you  regret  ? 

"28th. 

"  Your  statue  will  never  be  finished, 
then  ?  I  should  like  to  have  you  in  marble, 
in  painting,  in  miniature,  in  every  style 
to  deceive  iny  impatience.  I  am  still  ex- 
pecting the  view  of  Belgirate  from  the 
south,  and  that  from  the  gallery.  The^' 
are  the  only  ones  wanting.  I  am  so  busy 
that  I  can  say  nothing  but  a  nothing  to- 
day, but  this  nothing  is  ever^iihing.  Was 
it  not  out  of  nothing  that  God  made  the 
world  ?  This  nothing  is  a  word,  the  word 
of  God  :  I  love  you  ! 

"30th. 

"  Ah  !  I  have  received  your  journal. 
Thanks  for  your  punctuality.  You  felt 
pleased,  then,  at  seeing  the  details  of  our 
first  acquaintance  thus  published  ?  Alas ! 
although  they  were  disguised,  I  was  ter- 
ribly afraid  of  offending  you.  We  had  no 
novel,  and  a  '  Revue '  without  a  novel  is 
a  beauty  without  hair.  XJninventive  by 
nature,  and  in  despair,  I  took  the  only- 
poesy  in  my  soul,  the  only  adventure  in 
my  memory ;  I  brought  it  down  to  a 
readable  tone,  and  I  never  ceased  to  think 
of  you  while  writing  the  only  literary 
production  which  will  ever  come  from  my 
lieart — I  do  not  say  from  my  pen.  Did 
not  the  transformation  of  the  ferocious 
Sormano  into  Gina  make  .you  laugh  ? 

"You  ask,  how  is  my  health?  Why, 
much  better  than  in  Paris.  Although  I 
work  tremendously,  the  calmness  of  the 
scene  has  an  influence  on  the  soul.  What 
fatigues  and  ages  one,  dear  angel,  is  the 
.•ingiiish  of  deceived  vanity,  the  perpetual 
irritations  of  Paris  life,  the  contests  of 
rival  ambitions.  Peace  is  a  balm.  If 
you  knew  what  pleasure  your  letter  has 
given  me,  that  nice  long  letter  in  which 
you  tell  the  trifling  incidents  of  your  life  ! 
No  ;  you  will  never  know,  j'ou  women,  to 
what  an  extent  a  real  lover  is  interested 
b^'  these  trifles.  The  sight  of  the  scrap 
of  your  new  dress  gave  me  immense 
pleasure.     Can  it  be  a  matter  of  indiffer- 


ence to  know  how  yon  are  dressed,  whether 
3'our  noble  brow  is  wrinkled,  whether  our 
authors  amuse  you,  whether  the  songs 
of  Canalis  affect  you  ?  I  read  the  books 
you  read.  There  is  nothing,  even  to  your 
excursion  on  the  lake,  which  does  not 
interest  me.  Your  letter  is  noble  and  gen- 
tle as  your  soul.  O  heavenly-  and  con- 
stantly adored  flower  !  could  I  have  lived 
without  these  dear  letters,  which,  for 
eleven  years,  have  sustained  me  on  my 
difficult  path  like  a  ray  of  light,  like  a 
perfume,  like  a  regular  chant,  like  a  di- 
vine food,  like  everything  that  consoles 
and  charms  life?  Do  not  fail  me.  If  you 
knew  my  anxiety  on  the  eve  of  the  day 
I  receive  them,  and  the  suffering  the  delay 
of  a  day  causes  me  !  Is  she  ill !  Is  it 
he?  I  am  between  Paradise  and  Gehenna; 
I  go  mad.  O  mia  cava  diva  !  Continue 
to  cultivate  music,  exercise  your  voice, 
study.  I  am  charmed  with  the  conform- 
ity of  studies  and  hours  which  causes  us, 
although  separated  by  the  Alps,  to  live 
in  precisely  the  same  manner.  This  idea 
charms  me  and  gives  me  courage.  When 
I  pleaded  for  the  first  time — I  have  not 
told  3'^ou-  so  before — I  fancied  you  were 
listening  to  me,  and  I  suddenh'  felt  the 
movement  of  inspiration  which  elevates 
the  poet  above  humanity.  If  I  go  to  the 
Chamber,  j'ou  must  come  to  Paris  to  be 
present  at  my  debut. 

"  30tti,  Evening. 
"My  God  !  how  I  love  you  !  Alas  !  I 
have  staked  too  much  on  my  love  and  my 
hopes.  An  accident  which  should  upset 
tliis  overloaded  bark  would  destroy  my 
life.  It  is  three  years  since  I  have  seen 
you,  and  at  the  idea  of  g'oing-  to  Belgirate 
my  heart  beats  so  violently  I  am  obliged 
to  stop.  To  see  j^ou  ;  to  hear  that  infan- 
tine and  caressing  voice ;  to  embrace  with 
the  ej-es  that  ivory  skin  so  dazzling  in  the 
light,  and  beneath  which  beats  your  noble 
heart ;  to  admire  your  finsers  running 
over  the  keys  ;  to  receive  your  whole  soul 
in  a  look,  and  your  heart  in  the  accent  of 
an  '  Oime  '  or  an  'Alberto ' :  to  walk  to- 
gether among  your  orange  trees  in  flower; 
to  live  for  some  months  in  the  bosom  of 
this  sublime  scene — that  is  life.  Oh,  what 
folly  to  run  after  power,  fame,  fortune ! 


27G 


THE    HUMAN"    COMEDY 


It  is  all  at  Belffirate  :  there  is  poetrjs 
there  is  glory.  I  oug^bt  to  have  made  my- 
self your  steward,  or,  as  the  dear  tyrant 
whom  we  cannot  hate  proposed,  lived 
thert^  as  cavaliere  servente.  which  our 
ardent  passion  did  not  permit  us  to  accept. 
Adieu,  my  angel.  You  will  pardon  me 
my  next  fit  of  sadness  for  the  sake  of  this 
gayety,  falling  like  a  ray  from  the  torch 
of  hope,  wliich  until  now  had  appeared  a 
will-o'-the-wisp." 

"  How^  he  loves!"  exclaimed  Rosalie, 
letting  fall  the  letter,  which  seemed  too 
hea\y  to  hold.  After  eleven  years,  to 
write  like  this  !  " 

"  Marie tte,"  said  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  to  the  lady's-maid,  the  next 
morning,  "go  and  put  this  letter  in  the 
post.  Tell  Jerome  I  know  all  I  wanted  to 
know,  and  he  is  to  be  faithful  to  Monsieur 
Albert.  We  will  confess  these  sins  with- 
out saying  to  whom  the  letters  belonged, 
or  where  they  were  going.  I  have  done 
very  wi'ong ;  I  am  the  only  culprit." 

"  You  have  been  crjing,  mademoiselle," 
said  Mariette. 

"  Yes  ;  and  I  should  not  like  my  mother 
to  notice  it.  Give  me  some  very  cold 
water." 

In  the  midst  of  her  storms  of  passion, 
Rosalie  often  listened  to  the  voice  of  her 
conscience.  Touched  by  this  admirable 
fidelity  of  two  hearts,  she  had  just  said 
her  prayers,  and  told  lierself  there  was 
nothing  left  for  her  but  to  resign  lierself, 
to  respect  the  happiness  of  two  beings 
worthy  of  each  other,  resigned  to  their 
fate,  awaiting  everything  from  God,  with- 
out giving  way  to  criminal  wishes  or  ac- 
tions. She  felt  herself  better,  she  experi- 
enced an  internal  satisfaction,  after  having 
taken  this  resolution.  Inspired  by  the  rec- 
titude natural  to  j'outh.  She  was  en- 
couraged in  it  by  a  J'oung  girl's  re- 
flection :  she  was  sacrificing  herself  for 
him. 

"  She  does  not  know  how  to  love,"  she 
thought.  "  Ah  !  if  it  were  me,  I  would 
sacrifice  everything  to  a  man  who  loved 
me  hke  that.  To  be  loved  !  When  and 
by  whom  shall  I  be  loved  myself  ?  This 
little  Monsieur  de  Soulas  is  only  in  love 


with  my  fortune ;  if  I  were  poor,  he  would 
pay  no  attention  to  me." 

"  Rosalie,  my  girl,  what  are  you  tliink- 
ing  about,?  You  are  going  beyond  the 
line,"  said  the  baroness  to  her  daughter, 
who  was  making  worked  slippers  for  the 
baron. 

Rosalie  spent  the  whole  of  the  winter  of 
1834-1835  in  secret  conflicts ;  but  in  the 
spring,  in  the  month  of  April,  the  period 
at  which  she  attained  her  nineteenth  year, 
she  sometimes  said  to  herself  that  it  would 
be  a  great  thing  to  triumph  over  a  Duch- 
ess d'Argaiolo.  In  silence  and  solitude, 
the  prospect  of  this  struggle  rekindled 
her  passion  and  her  evil  thoughts.  She 
strengthened  in  advance  her  romantic 
temerity  by  forming  plans  on  plans.  Al- 
though such  characters  are  exceptional, 
there  exist,  unfortunately,  far  too  many 
Rosalies,  and  this  history  ought  to  be  an 
example  to  Ihem. 

During  this  winter,  Albert  Savarus 
had  silenth'  made  immense  progress  in 
Besancon.  Sure  of  success,  he  awaited 
with  impatience  the  dissolution  of  the 
Chamber.  He  had  won  over,  among  the 
juste-milieu  party,  one  of  the  makers  of 
Besancon,  a  rich  contractor  who  wielded 
great  influence. 

The  Romans  everywhere  took  enormous 
pains  and  expended  immense  sums  to  get 
an  excellent  and  unlimited  water  supply 
in  all  the  cities  of  their  empire.  At  Bes- 
ancon they  drank  the  water  of  Arcier,  a 
mountain  situated  at  a  j'retty  good  dis- 
tance from  Besancon.  Besancon  is  a  town 
situated  in  the  hollow  of  a  horseshoe  de- 
cribed  by  tlie  Doubs  ;  so  that  to  re-estab- 
lish the  aqueduct  of  the  Romans,  in  order 
to  drink  the  water  the  Romans  drank,  in 
a  town  watered  by  the  Doubs,  is  one 
of  those  absurd  ideas  which  could  only 
take  in  a  province  where  the  most  ex- 
emplary gravity  reigns.  If  this  fancy 
got  hold  of  the  hearts  of  the  Bisontines, 
it  would  necessitate  a  large  expenditure, 
and  this  expenditure  would  be  to  the  prof- 
it of  the  influential  man.  Albert  Savaron 
de  Savarus  decided  that  the  Doubs  was 
good  for  nothing  but  to  flow  under  sus- 
pension bridges,  and  that  the  onlj^  drinka- 
ble water  was  that  of  Arcier.     Articles 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


appeared  in  the  "  Revue  de  I'Est,"  which 
were  only  the  expression  of  the  ideas  of 
Bisontine  commerce.  The  nobles  and  the 
citizens,  t\\c  juste  milieu  and  the  Legiti- 
mists, the  Government  and  the  Opposi- 
tion—in short,  all  the  world  was  perfeeth' 
agreed  in  wanting  to  drink  the  water  of 
Arcier,  and  possess  a  suspension  bridge. 
The  question  of  the  Arcier  water  was  the 
order  of  the  day  at  Besancon.  At  Besan- 
con,  as  in  the  two  railways  to  Versailles, 
as  in  existing  abuses,  there  were  hidden 
interests  which  gave  a  powerful  vitality 
to  the  idea.  The  reasonable  people,  few 
in  number,  besides,  who  opposed  this  proj- 
ect were  treated  as  blockheads.  Nothing 
was  talked  about  but  the  two  plans  of  the 
barrister  Savaron. 

After  eighteen  months  of  subterranean 
toil,  this  ambitious  man  had  succeeded, 
then,  in  the  most  stationary  town  in 
France  and  the  most  obdurate  to  stran- 
gers, in  stirring  it  profoundly,  in  making, 
according  to  a  vulgar  expression,  sun- 
shine and  rain  there,  in  exercising-  a  posi- 
tive influence  without  having  gone  out- 
side his  own  door.  He  had  solved  the 
singular  problem  of  being  a  power  in  a 
place  without  being  popular.  During  this 
winter  he  gained  seven  causes  for  eccle- 
siastics in  Besancon.  So  that,  at  some 
moments,  he  breathed  by  anticipation  the 
air  of  the  Chamber.  His  heart  swelled 
at  the  thought  of  his  coming  triumph. 
This  immense  desire,  which  made  him 
bring  so  many  interests  on  the  scene,  and 
invent  so  many  stratagems,  was  absorb- 
ing the  last  energies  of  his  soul,  strained 
beyond  measure.  They  applauded  his 
disinterestedness;  he  accepted  without 
observations  the  fees  of  his  clients.  But 
this  disinterestedness  was  moral  usury ; 
he  expected  a  reward  of  more  considera- 
tion to  him  than  all  the  gold  in  the  world. 
He  had  bought,  professedly  to  render  a 
sei'vice  to  a  merchant  whose  affairs  were 
embarrassed,  in  the  month  of  October, 
1834,  and  with  the  funds  of  Leopold  Han- 
nequin,  a  house  which  rendered  him  eligi- 
ble for  election.  This  profitable  invest- 
ment did  not  appear  to  have  been  either 
sought  or  desired. 

' '  You  are  indeed  a  really  remarkable 


man,"  said  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  who 
naturally  watched  anil  understood  the 
barrister,  to  Sa varus.  The  vicar-general 
had  come  to  introduce  to  him  a  canon 
who  required  his  advice.  '■  You  are," 
said  he,  "a,  priest  who  is  not  in  his  right 
road." 

This  saying  struck  Savarus. 

On  her  side,  Rosalie  had  decided,  in  her 
weak  girl's  strong  head,  to  bring  Mon- 
sieur de  Savarus  into  the  salon,  and  intro- 
duce him  into  the  societj'^  of  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt.  She  limited  her  desires  as  yet 
to  seeing  Albert  and  listening  to  him. 
She  had  compromised,  so  to  speak,  and 
compromises  are  often  onlj'  truces. 

The  Rouxeys,  the  jDatrimonial'  estate  of 
the  Wattevilles,  was  worth  ten  thousand 
francs  a  year  net,  but  in  other  hands  it 
would  have  produced  much  more.  The 
carelessness  of  the  baron,  whose  wife 
would  have,  and  had,  an  income  of  forty 
thousand  francs,  left  the  Rouxeys  under 
the  management  of  a  sort  of  Maltre 
Jacques,  an  old  seiwant  of  the  house  of 
Watteville,  named  Modinier.  Still,  when- 
ever the  baron  and  baroness  felt  inclined 
to  go  into  the  country,  the3'  went  to  the 
Rouxeys,  the  situation  of  which  is  very 
picturesque.  The  house,  the  park  —  in 
fact,  everything  had  been  created  b}^  the 
famous  Watteville,  who,  in  his  active  old 
age,  was  passionately  fond  of  this  mag- 
nificent spot. 

Between  two  little  Alps,  two  peaks 
whose  summits  are  bare,  and  which  are 
called  the  Great  and  the  Little  Rouxey,  in 
the  middle  of  a  gorge  through  which  the 
waters  of  these  mountains  descend  and 
flow  on  to  mingle  with  the  delicious 
sources  of  the  Doubs,  Watteville  had  had 
the  idea  of  constructing  an  enormous 
dam,  leaving  two  weirs  for  the  overflow 
of  the  waters.  Above  his  dam,  he  ob- 
tained a  lovelj'  lake,  and  below  it,  two 
cascades  which,  uniting  at  some  yards 
from  their  fall,  fed  a  charming  stream, 
with  which  he  watered  tlie  parched,  ira- 
cultivatcd  vallej'  formerly  devastated  hy 
the  torrent  from  the  Rouxeys.  This  lake, 
this  valley,  and  these  moimtains  he  shut 
in  by  an  inclosure,  and  built  himself  a 
hermitage  on   the  dam,  which  he  made 


78 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


three  acres  in  width,  bring'inff  to  it  all  the 
earth  that,  had  to  be  dug-  out  to  make  the 
bed  of  the  stream  and  the  canals  for  irri- 
gation. When  the  Baron  de  Watteville 
made  himself  the  lake  above  his  dam,  he 
was  the  proprietor  of  the  two  Rouxej'S, 
but  not  of  the  higlier  valley  which  he  thus 
inundated,  through  which  there  had  al- 
waj'S  been  a  way,  and  which  terminates 
in  a  horseshoe  at  the  foot  of  the  Dent 
de  Vilard.  But  this  savage  old  man  in- 
spired so  much  terror  that,  during  his 
whole  life,  there  wus  no  complaint  on  the 
part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Les  Riceys,  a 
little  village  situated  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Dent  de  Vilard.  When  the  baron 
died,  he 'had  united  the  slopes  of  the 
two  Rouxeys  to  the  foot  of  the  Dent 
de  Vilard,  by  a  strong  wall,  in  order 
not  to  inundate  the  two  valleys  which 
opened  into  the  gorge  of  the  Rouxeys,  to 
the  right  and  left  of  the  peak  of  Vilard. 
He  died,  having  made  a  conquest  of  the 
Dent  de  Vilard.  His  heirs  constituted 
themselves  the  protectors  of  the  village 
of  Riceys  and  thus  maintained  the  usurpa- 
tion. The  old  murderer,  the  old  i-enegade, 
the  old  Abbe  Watteville,  had  finished 
his  career  in  planting  trees,  and  making 
a  splendid  road,  cut  in  the  flank  of  one  of 
the  two  Rouxeys,  and  which  ran  into  the 
high-road.  Attached  to  this  park  and 
this  habitation  were  grounds  very  ill  cul- 
tivated, cottages  on  the  two  mountains, 
and  uncultivated  woods.  It  was  wild  and 
solitary,  under  the  protection  of  nature, 
abandoned  to  the  chances  of  vegetation, 
but  full  of  sublime  pastures.  You  can 
now  picture  to.  yourself  the  Rouxeys. 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  encumber  this 
history  by  recounting  the  prodigious  ef- 
forts, and  the  stratag'ems  stamped  with 
genius,  by  which  Rosalie  attained  her  end 
without  exciting  suspicion.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that,  in  obedience  to  her  mother,  she 
left  Besancon  in  the  month  of  May,  1835, 
in  an  old  carriage  drawn  by  two  big  hired 
horses,  and  went  with  her  father  to  the 
Rouxeys. 

Love  explains  everything  to  young 
girls.  When,  on  rising  the  morning  after 
her  arrival  at  the  Rouxeys,  Mademoiselle 
de  Watteville  looked  from  the  window  of 


her  room  on  to  the  fair  sheet  of  water, 
from  which  arose  vapors  exhaled  like 
fumes,  and  which  hovered  among  the  firs 
and  larches,  crawling  along  the  two  peaks 
to  gain  their  summits,  she  gave  vent  to 
a  cry  of  admiration. 

They  fell  in  love  while  thej'  were  among 
the  lakes  ;  she  is  on  a  lake  !  Decidedly, 
a  lake  is  full  of  love. 

A  lake  fed  by  the  snows  shows  the  tints 
of  an  opal  and  the  transparency  of  an 
enormous  diamond  ;  but  when  it  is  shut 
in,  like  that  of  the  Rouxeys,  between  two 
blocks  of  granite  clothed  with  firs,  when 
there  reigns  over  it  the  silence  of  a  sa- 
vanna or  a  steppe,  it  extorts  from  every 
one  the  cry  just  uttered  by  Rosalie. 

"We  owe  this,"  said  her  father,  "to 
the  famous  Watteville." 

"  Upon  my  honor,"  said  the  young 
girl,  "he  wanted  to  atone  for  his  crimes. 
Let  us  get  into  the  boat  and  go  to  the 
end,"  said  she  ;  "we  shall  get  an  appe- 
tite for  breakfast." 

The  baron  sent  for  two  young  garden- 
ers who  knew  how  to  row,  and  took  with 
him  his  first  minister  Modinier.  The  lake 
was  six  acres  and  sometimes  ten  or  twelve 
in  width,  and  four  hundred  acres  in 
length. 

Rosalie  soon  got  to  the  further  end, 
which  was  boimded  by  the  Dent  de  Vilard, 
the  Jungfrau  of  this  Uttle  Switzerland. 

"Here  we  are,  monsieur  le  baron," 
said  Modinier,  making  a  sign  to  the  two 
gardeners  to  make  the  boat  fast;  "will 
you  come  and  see?" 

"  See  what  ?  "  asked  Rosalie. 

"Oh,  nothing,"  said  the  baron.  "But 
you  are  a  sensible  girl ;  we  have  our 
secrets  together,  and  I  may  tell  you 
what  is  worrying  mj^  mind.  Since  1830, 
difficulties  have  arisen  between  the  com- 
mune of  Riceys  and  me,  precisely  on  ac- 
count of  the  Dent  de  Vilard,  and  I  want 
to  settle  them  without  your  mother's 
knowledge;  for  she  is  obstinate,  and  is 
capable  of  getting  into  a  passion,  par- 
ticularly if  she  knows  that  the  mayor 
of  Rice^'s,  a  Republican,  got  up  the  dis- 
pute to  gratify  his  peeple." 

Rosalie  had  courage  enough  to  disguise 
her  303',  in  order  to  have  all  the  more  in- 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


279 


flucnce  on  her  father.  "  What  dispute  ?" 
said  she. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Modinier,  "the 
people  of  the  Riceys  have  for  a  long  time 
had  a  right  of  pasture  and  wood-cutting 
on  their  side  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard.  Now, 
Monsieur  Chantonnil,  their  mayor  ever 
since  1830,  asserts  that  the  whole  of  the 
Dent  belongs  to  his  commune,  and  main- 
tains that  a  hundred  and  odd  years  ago 
there  was  a  right  of  way  over  our  lands. 
You  comprehend  that  in  that  case  we 
should  no  longer  be  in  our  own  house. 
And  then  this  savage  would  say  next, 
what  the  old  inhabitants  of  the  Riceys 
say,  that  the  site  of  the  lake  had  been 
appropriated  by  the  Abbe  de  Watte- 
ville.  Why,  it  would  be  the  ruin  of  the 
Rouxeys." 

"  Alas !  my  child,  between  ourselves, 
it  is  true,"  said  Monsieur  de  Watteville, 
frankly.  "This  estate  is  a  usurpation 
consecrated  by  time ;  therefore,  to  avoid 
all  further  disputes,  I  intended  to  pro- 
pose to  settle  amicably  my  boundaries  on 
this  side  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard,  and  then 
I  would  build  a  wall." 

' '  If  j'ou  give  way  before  the  Republic, 
it  will  devour  you.  It  was  for  you  to 
threaten  the  Riceys." 

"  That  is  just  what  I  was  saying  to 
monsieur  yesterday  evening,"  replied 
Modinier.  "  But,  to  support  this  opin- 
ion, I  proposed  to  him  to  come  and  see 
whether  there  were  not,  either  on  this 
side  of  the  Dent  or  the  other,  at  any  part 
of  it,  traces  of  an  inclosure." 

For  a  hundred  years  both  sides  had 
been  making  the  most  of  the  Dent  de 
Vilard,  the  species  of  pai'ty  wall  between 
the  commune  of  the  Riceys  and  tlie 
Rouxeys,  which  did  not  produce  a  great 
deal,  without  coming  to  extremities.  The 
object  in  litigation  being  covered  with 
snow  six  months  out  of  the  twelve,  was 
of  a  nature  to  keep  the  question  cool.  So 
it  required  all  the  ai-dor  inspired  by  the 
Revolution  of  1830  in  the  defenders  of  the 
people  to  reanimate  this  affair,  through 
which  Monsieur  Chantonnil,  mayor  of 
the  Riceys,  hoped  to  dramatize  his  ex- 
istence on  the  quiet  frontier  of  Switzer- 
land, and  immortalize  his  administration. 


Chantonnil,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  of 
Neuchatel  origin. 

"My  dear  father,"  said  Rosalie,  on 
getting  into  the  boat  again,  "  I  agree 
with  Modinier.  If  you  want  to  obtain 
the  joint  property  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard, 
it  is  necessary  to  act  with  vigor,  and  ob- 
tain a  judgment  which  will  make  you  safe 
against  the  proceedings  of  this  Chanton- 
nil. Why  should  you  be  afraid?  Get 
the  famous  Savaron  for  your  counsel ; 
secure  him  at  once,  so  that  Chantonnil 
may  not  confide  to  him  the  interests  of 
his  commune.  The  man  who  won  the 
cause  of  the  chapter  against  the  town 
will  certainly  be  able  to  win  that  of  the 
Wattevilles  against  the  Riceys !  Be- 
sides," said  she,  "the  Rouxeys  will  be 
mine  some  day  (as  far  off  as  possible,  I 
hope).  Well,  do  not  leave  me  any  law- 
suits. I  like  this  place,  and  I  shall  often 
inhabit  it.  I  shall  enlarge-it  as  much  as 
lean.  On  these  banks,"  said  she,  point- 
ing to  the  bases  of  the  two  Rouxeys,  "I 
will  have  clumps  of  trees  planted  ;  I  will 
make  charming  English  gardens  of  them. 
Let  us  go  to  Besancon,  and  not  come 
back  without  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  Mon- 
sieur Savaron,  and  my  mother,  if  she 
likes.  Then  you  will  be  able  to  come  to  a 
decision ;  but,  in  your  place,  I  should  have 
decided  already.  You  bear  the  name  of 
a  Watteville,  and  you  are  afraid  of  a  com- 
bat !  If  you  lose  the  cause,  then  I  wUl 
never  say  a  word  to  reproach  you." 

"  Oh,  if  you  take  it  in  that  light,  I  am 
quite  wUling ;  and  I  will  see  the  advo- 
cate." 

"  Besides,  a  lawsuit  is  verj'  amusing. 
It  gives  an  interest  to  jm\Y  life  ;  you  go 
and  come  and  bustle  about.  Will  you  not 
have  a  thousand  steps  to  take  to  get  at 
the  judges  ?  We  never  saw  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey  for  more  than  three  weeks,  he 
was  so  busy  !  " 

"  But  the  whole  existence  of  the  chapter 
was  at  stake,"  said  Monsieur  de  Watte- 
ville. "  And,  besides  that,  the  self-esteem, 
the  conscience  of  the  archbishop,  evei-y- 
thing  that  priests  live  for,  was  concerned. 
This  Savaron  does  not  know  what  he  has 
done  for  the  chapter;  he  has  saved  it." 

"Listen  to  me,"  she  whispered.     "If 


280 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


you  have  Monsieur  Savaron  for  you,  you 
will  win,  will  you  not  ?  Well,  let,  me  g-ive 
you  a  piece  of  advice.  You  can  only  g-et 
hold  of  •  ilonsieur  Savai'on  through  Mon- 
sieur de  Grancey.  If  j'ou  think  I  am 
right,  let  us  speak  to  the  dear  abbe 
together,  without  my  mother  being  at  the 
conference ;  for  I  know  a  means  of  induc- 
ing him  to  get  us  Monsieur  Savaron." 

"  It  will  be  very  diEEicult  not  to  mention 
it  to  your  mother." 

"The  Abbe  de  Grancey  will  undertake 
that  afterward ;  but  make  up  your  mind 
to  promise  your  vote  to  the  barrister  Sav- 
aron at  the  next  election,  and  you  will 
see." 

"Go  to  the  elections  !  Take  the  oath  !" 
exclaimed  the  Baron  de  Watteville. 

"  Bah  !  "  said  she. 

"  And  what  will  j^our  mother  say  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  she  will  order  you  to  do  it," 
answered  Rosalie,  who  knew  from  the 
letter  of  Albei't  to  Leopold  the  pi-omises 
made  by  the  vicar-general. 

Four  days  after,  the  Abbe  de  Grancey 
popped  upon  Albert  de  Savaron  very 
early  in  the  morning,  having  given  no- 
tice of  his  visit  the  day  before.  The  old 
priest  came  to  retain  the  great  advocate 
for  the  house  of  Watteville — a  step  which 
rev(>als  the  tact  and  adroitness  secretly 
brought  into  i^lay  by  Rosalie. 

"  What  can  I  do  for  j'ou,  monsieur  the 
vicar-general  ?  '•'  said  Savarus. 

The  abbe,  who  rattled  through  his 
business  with  admirable  good  humor, 
was  coldly  listened  to  by  Albert. 

"  My  dear  abbe,"  answered  he,  "  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  undertake  the  inter- 
ests of  the  house  of  Watteville,  and  you 
will  understand  why.  The  part  I  have 
to  plaj^  here  consists  of  keeping  the 
strictest  neutrality.  I  do  not  want  to 
show  any  colors,  and  must  remain  an 
enigma  until  the  eve  of  my  election. 
Now,  to  plead  for  the  Wattevilles  would 
be  nothing  in  Paris;  but  here  —  here, 
where  ever^•thing  is  commented  upon — 
everybody  would  set  me  down  as  the 
representative  of  your  faubourg  Saint 
Germain." 

"  What,  do  you  believe  that  you  will 
be  able  to  remain  unknown  on  the  day  of 


election,  when  the  candidates  attack  each 
other  ?  People  must  know  then  that  your 
name  is  Savaron  de  Savarus,  that  you 
have  been  mattre  des  requetes,  and  that 
you  are  a  supporter  of  the  Restoration." 

"  On  the  day  of  election,"  said  Savarus, 
"  I  shall  be  everything  it  is  necessary  to 
be.  I  intend  to  speak  at  the  preliminary 
meetings." 

"If  Monsieur  de  Watteville  and  his 
partj'  support  j'ou,  you  will  have  a  hun- 
dred compact  votes,  and  rather  more 
reliable  ones- than  those  on  which  you 
reckon.  You  can  always  sow  division 
among  interests,  but  you  cannot  split  up  ' 
convictions." 

"Oh,  the  deuce!"  resumed  Savarus. 
"  I  love  you,  and  would  do  a  great  deal 
for  you,  father.  Perhaps  we  may  come 
to  terms  with  the  devil.  Whatever  may 
be  the  nature  of  Monsieur  de  Watteville's 
business,  we  may,  by  employing  Girardet 
and  giving  him  instructions,  dela^-  pro- 
ceedings until  after  the  elections.  I  will 
only  undertake  to  plead  on  the  day  after 
my  election." 

"  Do  one  thing,"  said  the  abbe.  "Come 
to  the  Hotel  de  Rupt.  There  is  a  young 
girl  of  nineteen  there,  who  will  one  day 
have  an  income  of  a  hundred  thousand 
francs,  and  you  will  appear  to  be  paying 
your  addresses  to  her." 

"  Ah  !  the  young  girl  I  see  so  often  in 
the  kiosk." 

"Yes,  Mademoiselle  Rosalie,"  resumed 
the  Abbe  de  Grancey.  "You  are  am- 
bitious. If  you  please  her,  you  will  be 
everything  an  ambitious  man  desires  to 
be — who  knows?  perhaps  a  minister.  A 
man  can  always  be  a  minister  when  he 
combines  a  fortune  of  a  himdred  thousand 
francs  a  year  with  your  astounding 
abilities." 

"Monsieur  I'Abbe,"  said  Albert,  warm- 
ly, "if  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  had 
three  times  as  large  a  fortune  and  adored 
me,  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  marry 
her." 

"Are  you  married,  then?  "  asked  the 
Abbe  de  Grance.y. 

"Not  in  church,  nor  at  the  mairie," 
said  Savarus,  "but  morally." 

"  That  is  worse,  when  one  is  as  strongly 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


2S1 


attached  as  j'ou  seem  to  be,"  replied  the 
abbe.  "  What  is  not  done  can  be  undone. 
Do  not  rest  your  fortune  and  your  plans 
on  the  will  of  a  woman,  any  more  than  a 
wise  man  waits  for  a  dead  man's  shoes  to 
start  on  a  journej-." 

"Let  us  leave  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville  alone,"  said  Albert,  gravely,  "and 
settle  our  arrangements.  For  your  sake, 
whom  I  love  and  respect,  I  will  plead,  but 
after  the  elections,  for  Monsieur  de  Watte, 
ville.  Until  then  j^our  business  will  be 
managed  by  Girardet,  according  to  m^' 
instructions.  That  is  all  I  can  do  for 
you." 

"But  there  are  questions  which  can 
only  be  decided  after  an  inspection  of  the 
locality',"  said  the  vicar-general. 

"Girai'det  will  go,"  replied  Savarus. 
"  I  camiot  allow  myself,  in  the  midst  of  a 
town  I  know  so  well,  to  take  a  step  of 
a  nature  to  compromise  the  immense  in- 
terests concealed  behind  my  election." 

The  Abbe  de  Grancey,  on  leaving  Sav- 
arus, gave  him  a  sly  look,  by  which  he 
seemed  to  laugh  at  the  compact  policy  of 
the  young  athlete,  while  admiring  his 
resolution. 

'  •'  Ah  !  I  have  dragged  mj^  father  into 
a  lawsuit !  Ah  !  I  have  done  all  this  to 
get  you  here  !  "  said  Rosalie  to  herself, 
from  the  height  of  the  kiosk,  looking  at 
the  barrister  in  his  cabinet  the  day  after 
the  conference  between  Albert  and  the 
Abbe  de  Grancej',  the  result  of  which  had 
been  communicated  to  her  by  her  father. 
"  I  have  committed  mortal  sins,  and  you 
will  not  enter  the  salon  of  the  Hotel  de 
Rupt,  and  I  shall  not  hear  your  splendid 
voice  !  You  put  conditions  on  your  assist- 
ance when  the  Wattevilles  and  the  Rupls 
ask  for  it !  Well,  God  knows  I  would 
have  been  satisfied  with  these  small  pleas- 
ures—to see  you,  to  hear  you,  to  goto  the 
Rouxej'S  with  you,  and  have  them  conse- 
crated for  me  by  your  presence.  I  did 
not  want  anj'  more.  But  now  I  will  be 
your  wife!  Yes,  yes;  look  at  hei'  por- 
traits, examine  her  salons,  her  room,  the 
four  fronts  of  her  villa,  the  views  in  her 
gardens!  You  are  waiting  for  her  statue! 
I  will  turn  her  to  marble  herself  for  you. 
Besides,  this  woman  cannot  love.    Art, 


science,  literature,  singing,  and  music 
have  taken  up  half  her  senses  and  her  in- 
tellect. Besides,  she  is  old ;  she  is  more 
than  thirtj',  and  my  Albert  would  be  un- 
happy !  " 

"What  makes  you  stay  there,  Rosa- 
lie?" said  her  mother,  interrupting  the 
reflections  of  her  daughter.  "Monsieur 
de  Soulas  is  in  the  salon,  and  remarked 
your  attitude,  which  certainly  betrayed 
more  thoughts  than  you  ought  to  have 
at  your  age." 

"Is  Monsieur  de  Soulas  an  enemy  of 
thought?"  asked  she. 

"  You  were  thinking,  then  ? "  said  Ma- 
dame de  Watteville. 

"Why,  yes,  mamma." 

"Why,  no, you  were  not  thinking.  You 
were  looking  at  the  windows  of  this  bar- 
rister with  an  interest  which  is  neither 
proper  nor  decent,  and  which  Monsieur 
de  Soulas,  least  of  all  persons,  ought  to 
remark." 

"  But  whj'  ?  "  said  Rosalie. 

"Well,"  said  the  baroness,  "it  is  time 
that  you  knew  our  intentions.  Amedee 
admires  j'ou,  and  you  will  not  be  badly 
off  as  Countess  de  Soulas." 

Pale  as  a  lUy,  Rosalie  made  no  answer 
to  her  mother,  the  violence  of  her  disajj- 
pointed  sentiments  rendered  her  so  thoi"- 
oughly  stupid.  But  in  the  presence  of 
this  man,  whom  she  hated  so  deeply  since 
an  instant  ago,  she  put  on  the  indefinable 
smile  that  dancers  put  on  for  the  public. 
In  short,  she  was  able  to  laugh,  she  had 
strength  to  conceal  her  rage,  which  calmed 
itself  down,  for  she  resolved  to  employ 
this  great  silly  young  fellow  for  her  owti 
purposes. 

"  Monsieur  Amedee,"  she  said  to  him, 
during  a  moment  when  the  bai'oness  w^s 
in  advance  of  them  in  the  garden,  affect- 
ing to  leave  the  young  people  alone,  "  you 
did  not  know,  then,  that  Monsieur  Albert 
Savaron  de  Savarus  is  a  Legitimist  ?  " 

"A  Legitimist?" 

"  Before  1830  he  was  maitre  des  re- 
quetes  to  the  Council  of  State,  attached 
to  the  presidency  of  the  CouncU  of  Minis- 
ters, and  in  favor  with  the  dauphin  and 
dauphiness.  It  would  have  been  good  of 
you  not  to  say  anything  against  him,  but 


282 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


it  would  be  still  better  to  go  to  the  elec- 
tions this  3'ear,  to  support  him  and  pre- 
vent that  poor  Monsieur  de  Chavoucourt 
from  representing  the  town  of  Besaucon." 

"  But  why  do  you  take  such  a  sudden 
interest  in  this  Savaron  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  Albert  de  Savarus,  the  nat- 
ural son  of  tlie  Count  de  Savarus  (pray 
keep  this  piece  of  indiscretion  secret),  if 
he  is  elected  deputy,  will  be  our  counsel 
in  the  affair  of  the  Rouxeys.  The  Rouxeys, 
my  father  tells  me,  will  be  my  property. 
I  should  like  to  live  there ;  it  is  charming  ! 
I  should  be  in  despair  at  seeing  this  mag- 
nificent creation  of  the  great  Watteville 
destroj-ed." 

"  Diajitre  !  "  said  Amedee  to  himself, 
on  leaving  the  Hotel  de  Rupt,  "this 
heiress  is  not  quite  such  a  fool  as  her 
mother  thinks  her." 

Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  is  a  Royalist 
who  belongs  to  the  famous  221.  Accord- 
ingly, from  the  very  day  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  July,  he  preached  the  salutary 
doctrine  of  taking  the  oath  and  combat- 
ing the  actual  order  of  things,  after  the 
example  of  the  Tories  against  the  Whigs 
in  England.  This  doctrine  was  not 
adopted  by  the  Legitimists,  who,  in  their 
defeat,  had  the  good  sense  to  differ  in 
opinion  and  rely  on  the  vis  inertice  and 
on  Providence.  Exposed  to  the  suspicion 
of  his  part}'.  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt 
appeared  to  the  members  of  the  juste 
milieu  the  most  satisfactory  choice  to 
make ;  they  preferred  the  triumph  of  his 
moderate  opinions  to  the  ovation  of  a 
Republican  who  united  the  votes  of  the 
enthusiasts  and  the  patriots.  Monsieur 
de  Chavoncourt,  a  man  very  much  es- 
teenaed  in  Besancon,  represented  an  old 
pjirliamentary  family;  his  fortune,  of 
about  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year, 
did  not  offend  anybodj^  none  the  less  be- 
cause he  had  a  son  and  three  daughters. 
Fifteen  tliousand  francs  a  year  are  nothing 
with  such  encumbrances.  Now  when, 
under  these  circumstances,  the  father  of 
a  familj'  remains  incorruptible,  it  is  dif- 
ficult for  the  electors  not  to  esteem  him. 
Electors  manifest  a  passionate  admiration 
for  the  beau  ideal  of  parliamentary  virtue, 
quite  as  much  as  the  pit  for  the  repre- 


sentation of  generous  sentiments  it  very 
seldom  practices.  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court, then  forty  years  of  age,  was  one 
of  the  fine  women  of  Besancon.  During 
the  sessions,  she  lived  poorly  on  one  of 
her  estates,  in  oi'der  to  make  up  by  her 
economies  for  the  expenses  of  Monsieur 
de  Chavoncourt  at  Paris.  In  the  winter, 
she  entertained  her  friends  honoi'ably  one 
day  in  the  week,  the  Tuesday ;  but  with 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  her  duties  as 
mistress  of  tlie  house.  Young  Chavon- 
court, aged  twenty-two,  and  another 
young  gentleman,  named  Monsieur  de 
VaucheUes,  no  richer  than  Amedee,  and 
also  his  schoolfellow,  were  exceedingly 
intimate.  They  went  together  to  Gran- 
ville ;  they  went  out  shooting-  together ; 
they  were  so  well  known  as  inseparables 
that  they  were  invited  into  the  country 
together. 

Equally  intimate  with  the  young  Cha- 
voncourts,  Rosalie  knew  that  these  three 
young  men  had  no  secrets  from  each 
other.  She  said  to  herself  that  if  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  committed  an  indiscretion, 
it  would  be  with  his  two  intimate  friends. 
Now,  Monsieur  de  VaucheUes  had  his 
plans  prepax-ed  for  his  marriage  as  Ame- 
dee had  for  his ;  he  wanted  to  marry 
Victoire,  the  eldest  of  the  young  Chavon- 
courts,  on  whom  an  old  aunt  would  settle 
an  estate  of  seven  thousand  francs  a  year 
and  a  hundred  thousand  francs  in  raonej' 
by  the  marriage  contract.  Victoire  was 
the  goddaughter  and  the  favorite  of  this 
aunt.  Evidently,  then,  young  Chavon- 
court and  VaucheUes  would  warn  Mon- 
sieur de  Chavoncourt  of  the  peril  he  would 
be  placed  in  by  the  pretensions  of  Albert. 
But  this  was  not  enough  for  Rosalie ;  she 
wrote,  with  her  left  hand,  an  anonj'mous 
letter  to  the  prefect  of  the  department, 
signed  A  friend  of  Louis  Philippe,  in 
which  she  infoi-med  liim  of  the  secret 
candidature  of  Monsieur  Albert  de  Sav- 
arus, explaining  the  dangerous  support  a 
Royalist  orator  would  lend  to  Bei'ryer, 
and  exposing  the  deepness  of  the  conduct 
pursued  by  the  advocate  at  Besancon  for 
the  last  two  years.  The  prefect  was  an 
able  man,  a  personal  enemy  of  the  Royal- 
ist party,  and  devoted  by  conviction  to 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


283 


the  Government  of  July  ;  in  short,  one  of 
those  men  who  make  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  in  the  Rue  de  Grenelle  say,  "We 
have  got  a  good  prefect  at  Besancon." 
This  prefect  read  the  letter,  and,  accord- 
ing to  request,  burned  it. 

Rosahe  wanted  to  make  Albert  lose  his 
election,  in  order  to  keep  him  for  five 
years  more  at  Besancon. 

The  elections  were  at  that  time  a  party 
struggle,  and,  in  order  to  triumph,  the 
minister  chose  his  ground  in  choosing  the 
moment  of  the  contest.  Accordingly,  the 
elections  would  not  take  place  before  the 
end  of  thi'ee  months.  When  a  man's 
whole  life  depends  upon  an  election,  the 
time  which  elapses  between  the  decree  for 
the  convocation  of  tlie  electoral  colleges 
and  the  day  fixed  for  their  operations  is  a 
time  during  which  his  ordinary  life  is  sus- 
pended. And  Rosalie  well  understood 
how  much  latitude  the  preoccupations  of 
Albert  during  these  months  would  leave 
her.  She  obtained  from  Mariette,  whom, 
as  she  afterward  confessed,  she  promised 
to  take  into  her  service,  as  well  as  Jerome, 
to  deliver  to  her  the  letters  sent  by  Albert 
to  Italy,  and  the  letters  for  him  that 
came  from  that  couutrj^.  And  all  the 
time  she  was  executing  these  plans  this 
astonishing  girl  was  making  slippers  for 
her  father,  with  the  most  innocent  air  in 
the  world.  She  even  redoubled  her  can- 
dor and  innocence,  knowing  all  the  effect 
of  her  candid  and  innocent  looks. 

"My daughter  grows  charming,"  said 
the  Baroness  de  Watteville. 

Two  months  before  the  elections,  a 
meeting  was  held  at  the  house  of  Mon- 
sieur Boucher,  senior,  composed  of  the 
contractor  (who  was  looking  forward  to 
the  works  of  the  bridge  and  the  Arcier 
water  supply),  of  the  father-in-law  of 
Monsieur  Boucher,  of  Monsieur  Granel 
(the  influential  man  to  whom  Savarus 
laad  rendered  a  ser^•ice,  and  who  was  to 
propose  him 'as  a  candidate),  of  the  at- 
tomej-  Girardet,  of  the  printer  of  the 
"  Re\Tie  de  I'Est,"  and  of  the  president  of 
the  Tribunal  of  Commerce.  In  short, 
this  meeting  comprised  twenty-seven  of 
those  personages  called  in  the  provinces 
"big  wigs."    Each  of  them  represented 


an  average  of  six  votes ;  but,  on  reckon- 
ing them,  they  were  taken  as  ten,  for 
people  always  begin  by  exaggerating  to 
themselves  their  own  influence.  Among 
these  twenty-seven  persons,  one  belonged 
to  the  prefect,  some  false  friend  who 
wanted  a  favor  from  the  minister  for  his 
friends  or  himself.  At  this  first  meeting 
it  was  agreed  to  choose  the  barrister  Sav- 
aron  for  candidate,  with  an  enthusiasm 
nobody  could  have  hoped  for  in  Besancon. 

While  waiting  at  home  for  Alfred 
Boucher  to  come  and  fetch  him,  Albert 
chatted  with  the  Abbe  de  Grancey,  who 
was  interested  in  this  immense  ambition. 
Albert  had  recognized  the  enormous  polit- 
ical capacity  of  the  priest,  and  the  priest, 
moved  by  the  prayers  of  the  young  man, 
had  consented  to  act  as  his  guide  and 
counsel  in  this  supreme  struggle.  The 
chapter  did  not  like  Monsieur  de  Chavon- 
court ;  for  the  brother-in-law  of  his  wife, 
who  was  president  of  the  tribunal,  had 
caused  the  loss  of  the  famous  suit  in  the 
first  stage. 

"You  are  betrayed,  my  dear  chUd," 
-said  the  astute  and  respectable  abbe,  in 
that  soft,  calm  voice  habitual  to  aged 
priests. 

"Betrayed!"  exclaimed  the  lover, 
struck  to  the  heart. 

"And  by  whom  I  know  not,"  replied 
the  priest.  "  The  prefecture  is  acquainted 
with  your  plans,  and  looks  over  your 
hand.  For  the  moment  I  can  give  jou 
no  advice.  Such  affairs  as  this  require 
consideration.  As  to  this  evening,  at 
this  meeting  anticipate  the  attacks  that 
will  be  made  on  you.  Relate  all  your 
former  life ;  you  will  thus  diminish  the 
effect  that  this  discovery  would  produce 
tn  the  Bisontines." 

"  Oh,  I  expected  this !  "  said  Savarus,  • 
in  a  broken  voice. 

"You  would  not  profit  by  my  advice. 
You  had  the  oppoi-tunity  of  appearing  at 
the  Hotel  de  Rupt.  You  don't  know  what 
you  would  have  gained." 

"What?" 

"  The  unanimity  of  the  Royalists  :  a 
momentary  agreement  to  go  to  the  elec- 
tions; in  short,  more  than  a  hundred 
votes.     By  adding  to  these  what  we  call 


284 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY.. 


among'  ourselves  the  ecclesiastical  votes, 
you  would  have  been  not  yet  elected,  but 
sure  of  the  election  by  ballot.  In  such  a 
case,  you  parley;  you  progress." 

On  entering-,  Alfred  Boucher,  who  an- 
nounced the  decision  of  the  preliminary 
meeting  with  great  enthusiasm,  found  the 
vicar-general  and  the  advocate  cold,  calm, 
and  grave. 

"Adieu,  Monsieur  I'Abbe,"  said  Al- 
bert; "we  will  go  into  your  affair  more 
thoroug-hly  after  the  elections." 

And  the  advocate  took  Alfred's  arm, 
after  having  significantly  pressed  the 
hand  of  Monsieur  de  Grancey.  The  priest 
looked  at  this  ambitious  man,  whose  face 
wore  the  sublime  air  of  a  general  catch- 
ing the  sound  of  the  first  cannon-shot  of 
the  battle.  He  lifted  his  eyes  to  heaven, 
and  said  to  himself  on  leaving,  "  What  a 
splendid  priest  he  would  make  !  " 

Eloquence  is  not  to  be  found  at  the  bar. 
Seldom  does  the  advocate  put  forth  the 
full  powers  of  his  soul,  otherwise  he  would 
perish  in  a  few  years.  Eloquence  is  sel- 
dom to  be  found  in  the  jjulpit  in  these 
days ;  but  it  is  to  be  found  in  certain  sit- . 
tings  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  tvhen 
the  ambitious  man  risks  all  or  nothing, 
or,  stimg  by  a  thousand  darts,  breaks 
out  at  a  given  moment.  And  it  is  still  to 
be  found,  assuredly,  in  certain  privileged 
beings  in  the  fatal  crisis  when  their  pre- 
tensions are  about  to  fail  or  succeed,  and 
when  they  are  obliged  to  speak.  And  so, 
at  this  meeting,  Albert  Savarus,  feeling 
the  necessity  of  making  himself  faithful 
followers,  developed  all  the  faculties  of 
his  soul,  all  the  resources  of  his  mind. 
He  entered  the  room  well,  without  awk- 
wardness or  arrogance,  without  weakness 
or  timidity,  but  with  gravity,  and  found 
.himself,  without  surprise,  in  the  midst  of 
upward  of  thirty  persons.  The  rumor 
of  the  meeting  and  its  decision  had  already 
attracted  some  docile  sheep  to  the  fold. 
Before  listening  to  Monsieur  Boucher,  who 
wanted  to  deliver  a  speech  respecting  the 
resolution  of  the  Boucher  committee,  Al- 
bert demanded  silence  by  making  signs 
and  pressing  the  hand  of  Monsieur 
Boucher,  as  if  to  warn  him  of  suddenly 
arisen  danger. 


"My  young  friend  Alfred  Boucher  has 
just  announced  to  me  the  honor  you  have 
done  me ;  but,  before  this  decision  be- 
comes final,"  said  the  advocate,  "  I  think 
it  my  duty  to  explain  to  j'ou  what  your 
candidate  is,  in  order  to  leave  you  still 
free  to  withdraw  your  promises  if  my 
declarations  disturb  your  conscience." 

This  exordium  had  the  effect  of  causing 
a  profound  silence  to  reign  around.  Some 
people  considered  the  movement  very 
noble. 

Albert  explained  his  former  life,  an- 
nouncing his  real  name  and  his  employ- 
ment under  the  Restoration,  declaring 
himself  a  new  man  since  his  arrival  at 
Besancon,  and  pledging -himself  for  the 
future.  This  improvisation,  they  say, 
kept  all  the  audience  breathless.  These 
men,  whose  interests  were  so  opposite, 
were  all  subjugated  by  the  admirable  elo- 
quence which  sprang  boiling  from  the 
heart  and  soul  of  this  ambitious  man. 
Admiration  prevented  all  reflection.  They 
only  understood  one  thing,  the  tiling  that 
Albert  wanted  to  get  into  their  heads. 

Was  it  not  better  for  a  city  to  be  repre- 
sented by  one  of  those  men  destined  to 
govern  society',  than  by  a  mere  voting 
machine?  A  statesman  is  himself  a 
power;  an  ordinary,  but  incorruptible, 
deputy  is  only  a  conscience.  What  a 
glory  for  Provence  to  have  discovered 
Mirabeau — to  have  returned,  after  1830, 
the  only  statesman  produced  by  the  Revo- 
lution of  July ! 

Under  the  pressure  of  this  eloquence, 
all  the  auditors  believed  in  its  power  to 
become  a  magnificent  political  instrument 
in  their  representative.  They  all  saw 
Savarus  the  minister  in  Albert  Savaron. 
Divining  the  secret  calculations  of  his 
hearers,  the  skillful  candidate  gave  them 
to  understand  that  they  would  acquire, 
themselves  in  the  first  place,  the  right  of 
making-  use  of  his  influence. 

This  profession  of  faith,  this  declaration 
of  ambition,  this  account  of  his  life  and 
character,  was,  according  to  the  only  man 
capable  of  judging  Savarus,  and  who  has 
since  become  one  of  the  notabilities  of 
Besancon,  a  masterpiece  of -skill,  of  senti- 
ment, of  warmth,  of  interest,  and  of  se- 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


285 


duction.  This  whirlwind  carried  away 
the  electors.  Never  did  man  have  such  a 
triumph.  But,  unfortunately,  speech,  a 
sort  of  weapon  forclose  quarters,  hasonl^y 
an  immediate  effect.  Reflection  destroys 
oratory  when  oratory  has  not  triumphed 
over  reflection.  If  they  had  voted  then 
and  there,  assuredly  the  name  of  Albert 
would  have  leaped  from  the  urn.  For  the 
moment,  he  was  the  conqueror.  But  he 
had  to  conquer  like  this  every  day  for  two 
months.  Albert  went  away  panting,  for 
breath.  Applauded  by  the  Bisontines,  he 
had  obtained  the  grand  result  of  killhig  in 
advance  the  damaging  remarks  to  which 
his  antecedents  might  give  rise.  The 
trade  of  Besancon  constituted  the  barrister 
Savaron  de  Savarus  its  candidate.  The 
enthusiasm  of  Alfred  Boucher,  contagious 
at  first,  would,  in  the  long  run,  become 
embarrassing. 

The  prefect,  alarmed  at  this  success, 
began  to  reckon  up  the  number  of  the 
ministerial  votes,  and  contrived  to  procure 
a  secret  interview  with  Monsieur  de  Cha- 
voncourt,  in  order  to  coalesce  with  com- 
mon interest.  Every  daj^,  and  without 
Albert  being  able  to  discover  how,  the 
votes  of  the  Boucher  committee  dimin- 
ished. A  month  before  the  election,  Al- 
bert found  himself  with  scarcely  sixty 
votes.  Nothing  could  resist  the  slow 
operations  of  the  prefecture.  Three  or 
four  clever  men  said  to  the  clients  of 
Savarus,  "  Will  the  deputy  plead  and  win 
j'our  causes?  Will  he  give  you  his  ad- 
vice ?  Will  he  draw  j'our  deeds  and 
'  agreements?  You  will  make  him  your 
slave  for  five  years  longer  if,  instead  of 
sending  him  to  the  Chamber,  you  only 
give  him  the  hope  of  getting  there  in 
five  years'  time."  This  calculation  was 
all  the  more  injurious  to  Savarus  that  it 
liail  alread^^  been  made  by  some  of  the 
merchant's  wives.  The  persons  interested 
in  the  affair  of  the  bridge  and  the  Arcier 
water  did  not  resist  a  conference  with  an 
adroit  ministerial,  who  proved  to  them 
that  the  protection  for  them  was  the  pre- 
fecture, and  oot  an  adventurer.  Every 
da3''  was  a  defeat  for  Albert,  although 
every  day  was  a  battle,  planned  bj'  him, 
but    carried    out    by    his    lieutenants — a 


battle  of  words,  of  speeches,  of  maneu- 
vers. He  dared  not  go  to  the  vicar-gen- 
eral's, and  the  vicar -general  did  not 
make  his  appearance.  Albert  got  up 
and  went  to  bed  in  a  fever,  with  his 
brain  on  fire. 

At  length  arrived  the  day  of  the  first 
contest,  what  is  called  a  preliminary 
meeting,  at  which  the  votes  are  counted, 
at  which  the  candidates  calculate  their 
chances,  and  at  which  the  skillful  can 
foresee  their  fall  or  their  success.  It  is 
a  decorous  hustings  scene,  without  the 
populace,  but  terrible.  The  emotions,  if 
they  do  not  find  physical  expression  as  in 
England,  are  none  the  less  profound.  The 
English  manage  matters  by  force  of  fists; 
in  France  they  are  managed  by  force  of 
phrases.  Our  neighbors  have  a  battle; 
tlie  French  risk  their  fate  on  cold  combi- 
nations elaborated  with  care.  This  po- 
litical proceeding  is  carried  on  in  a  style 
inverse  to  the  character  of  the  two  nations. 

The  Radical  party  had  its  candidate; 
Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  came  forward ; 
and  then  came  Albert,  who  was  accused 
by  the  Radicals  and  b^'  the  Chavoncourt 
committee  of  being  an  uncompromising 
member  of  the  Right,  a  double  of  Berryer. 
The  ministry  had  its  candidate,  a  devoted 
man,  made  use  of  to  keep  the  pure  minis- 
terial votes  together.  The  votes,  thus 
divided,  came  to  no  result.  The  Repub- 
lican candidate  had  twenty  votes,  the 
ministry  mustered  fifty,  Albert  counted 
seventj^.  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt  ob- 
tained sixty-seven.  But  the  perfidious 
prefecture  had  made  thirty  of  its  most 
devoted  supporters  vote  for  Albert,  in 
order  to  deceive  its  antagonist.  The 
voters  for  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,  com- 
bined with  the  eighty  real  voters  for  the 
perfecture,  became  masters  of  the  election, 
if  the  perfect  could  only  win  over  a  few 
votes  from  the  Radical  partj\  A  hun- 
dred and  sixty  votes  were  wanting,  those 
of  Monsieur  de  Grancey  and  the  Legiti- 
mists. A  preliminary  meeting  at  the 
elections  is  what  a  general  rehearsal  is  at 
the  theater,  the  most  deceitful  thing  in 
the  world. 

Albert  Savarus  returned  home,  keeping 
a  good  countenance,  but  death  struck. 


286 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


He  had  had  the  sense,  the  genius,  or  the 
luck  to  win  over,  during-  the  last  fort- 
night, two  devoted  adherents — the  father- 
in-law  of  Girardet,  and  a  very  cunning 
old  merchant  to  whom  he  was  sent  by 
Monsieur  de  Grancey.  These  two  good 
nieti  became  his  spies — passed  themselves 
ofT  as  the  uaost  ardent  enemies  of  Savarus 
in  the  opposing  camps.  Toward  the  end 
of  the  preparatory^  sitting,  they  informed 
Savarus,  through  the  medium  of  Monsieur 
Boucher,  that  thirty  unknown  voters  were 
carrying  on  against  him,  in  his  own  party, 
the  devices  which  they  were  exercising  on 
his  account  among  the  others. 

A  criminal  going  to  execution  does  not 
suffer  what  Albert  suffer-ed  on  returning 
home  from  the  hall  in  which  his  fate  had 
been  put  to  the  test.  The  despairing 
lover  would  allow  no  one  to  accompany 
him.  He  walked  alone  through  the 
streets,  between  eleven  and  twelve.  At 
one  in  the  morning,  Albert,  from  whom 
for  three  nights  sleep  had  fled,  was  seated 
in  his  library  in  a  Voltaire  chair,  his  face 
as  pale  as  if  he  were  about  to  expire,  his 
hands  drooping  in  an  attitude  of  abandon- 
ment worthy  of  a  Magdalen.  Tears  hung 
in  his  long  eyelashes,  those  tears  which 
wet  the  eyes  but  do  not  run  down  the 
cheek ;  intense  thouglit  absorbs  them, 
the  fires  of  the  soul  devour  them.  Alone 
he  could  weep.  He  perceived  then,  in  the 
kiosk,  a  white  form  which  reminded  him 
of  Francesca. 

"  And  it  is  three  months  since  I  have 
received  a  letter  from  her!  What  has 
become  of  her  ?  I  have  been  two  months 
without  writing  to  her,  but  I  gave  her 
notice  of  it.  Is  she  ill  ?  O  my  love !  0 
my  life  !  will  you  ever  know  what  I  have 
suffered  ?  What  a  fatal  organization  is 
mine!  Have  I  got  an  aneurism?"  he 
asked  himself,  feeling  his  heart  beat  so 
violently  that  its  pulsations  resounded 
through  the  silence  like  light  grains  of 
sand  falling  on  a  big  drum. 

At  this  moment  three  discreet  knocks 
were  heard  on  Albert's  door.  He  im- 
mediately went  to  open  it,  and  almost 
swooned  with  joy  on  seeing  the  vicar- 
general  with  a  joyous  air,  an  air  of 
triumph.    He  seized  the  Abbe  de  Gran- 


cey, without  saying  a  word,  held  him  in 
his  arms,  embraced  him,  and  allowed  his 
head  to  fall  on  the  shoulder  of  the  old 
man ;  and  he  became  a  child  again — he 
wept  as  he  had  wept  on  learning  that 
Francesca  Soderini  was  married.  He  ex- 
hibited his  weakness  only  to  this  priest, 
whose  face  was  radiant  with  the  dawn  of 
hope.  The  priest  had  been  sublime,  and 
as  astute  as  sublime. 

"Pardon,  dear  abbe,  but  j^ou  come  at 
one, of  those  moments  when  a  man  gives 
way — for  do  not  believe  that  mine  is  a 
vulgar  ambition." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  replied  the  abbe;  '•'  you 
have  written  'Love's  Ambition!'  Ah! 
my  child,  it  was  a  hopeless  love  that  made 
a  priest  of  me  in  1786,  at  two  and  twenty. 
In  1788  I  was  a  cure.  I  know  what  life 
is.  I  have  already  refused  three  bishop- 
rics; I  wish  to  die  at  Besancon." 

"Come  and  see  her,''  exclaimed  Sava- 
rus, taking  the  candle  and  showing  the 
abbe  into  the  magnificent  cabinet,  in 
which  was  placed  the  portrait  of  the 
Duchess  d'Argaiolo,  which  he  lighted  up. 

"  She  is  one  of  those  women  who  are 
born  to  reign ! "  said  the  vicar,  compre- 
hending all  the  affection  Albert  showed 
him  by  this  mute  confidence.  "But  there 
is  a  host  of  pride  on  that  brow ;  it  is  im- 
placable. She  would  never  forgive  an  in- 
jury !  She  is  an  archangel  Michael,  the 
angel  of  judgment,  the  inflexible  angel. 
'  All  or  nothing '  is  the  motto  of  those 
angelic  characters.  There  is  something 
divinely  untamed  in  this  countenance." 

"You  have  imagined  her  exactly,"  ex- 
claimed Savarus.  "  But,  my  dear  abbe, 
for  more  than  twelve  years  she  has  reigned 
over  my  life,  and  I  have  not  a  thought 
with  which  to  reproach  myself." 

"All!  if  you  had  done  as  much  for 
God,"  said  the  abbe  with  simplicity. 
"  Let  us  talk  about  your  affairs.  For 
the  last  ten  days  I  have  been  at  work  for 
you.  If  3'ou  are  really  a  politician,  you 
will  follow  my  counsels  this  time.  You 
would  not  be  in  j'our  present  position,  if 
you  had  gone  when  I  told  yQu  to  the  Hotel 
de  Eupt ;  but  you  will  go  to-morrow.  I 
shall  introduce  you  to-night.  The  estate 
of  the  Eouxeys  is  threatened ;  you  must 


ALBERT    SAV Alius. 


287 


plead  in  two  days.  The  election  will  not 
take  place  for  three  days.  They  will  take 
care  not  to  complete  the  organization  of 
the  bureaux  the  fii-st  day ;  we  shall  have 
several  scrutinies,  and  you  will  come  in 
at  the  final  biillot." 

"And  how?" 

"  By  winning  the  cause  of  the  Eouxeys, 
you  will  g'et  eig-hty  Legitimist  votes ;  add 
them  to  the  thirt,y  votes  of  which  I  can 
dispose,  and  we  get  to  a  hundred  and 
ten.  Now,  as  there  still  remain  to  3'ou 
twenty  of  the  Boucher  committee,  j'ou 
will  possess  altogether  a  hundred  and 
thirty." 

'  'Well,  "said  Albert,  ' '  we  want  seventy- 
five  more." 

"Yes,"  said  the  priest,  "for  all  the 
rest  belong  to  the  ministry.  But,  my 
child,  you  have  got  two  hundred  votes, 
and  the  ministry  has  only  a  hundred  and 
eighty." 

"  I  have  got  two  hundred  votes  ?  "  said 
Albert,  who  remained  stupefied  with  as- 
tonishment, after  having  started  to  his 
feet  as  if  shot  up  by  a  spring. 

"  You  have  the  votes  of  Monsieur  de 
Cbavoncourt,"  replied  the  abbe. 

"And  how?" 

"You  marry  Mademoiselle  Sidonie  de 
Chavoncourt." 

"Never!  " 

"  You  marry  Mademoiselle  Sidonie  de 
Chavoncourt,"  repeated  the  priest,  coldly. 

"But  see  !  she  is  implacable,"  said  Al- 
bert, pointing  to  Francesca. 

"  You  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Chavon- 
court," repeated  the  priest,  calmlj-,  for 
the  third  time. 

This  time  Albert  understood.  The  vicar- 
general  would  not  implicate  himself  in  the 
plan  which  found  favor  at  last  with  this 
politician  driven  to  despair.  A  word  more 
would  have  compromised  the  dignitj'  and 
probit.v  of  the  priest. 

"  You  will  find  to-morrow  at  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt 'Madame  de  Chavoncourt  and  her 
second  daughter.  You  will  thank  her  for 
what  she  is  about  to  do  for  j'ou ;  you  will 
tell  her  that  j'our  gratitude  is  boundless 
— ^that  you  belong  to  her,  body  and  soul. 
Are  not  your  future  interests  hencefor- 
ward those  of  her  family  ?    You  are  dis- 


interested ;  you  have  so  much  confidence 
in  yourself  that  you  look  upon  a  nomi- 
nation as  depnty  as  a  sufficient  marriage 
portion.  You  will  have  a  combat  with 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt ;  she  will  try  to 
make  you  pledge  jourself.  In  this  even- 
ing, my  son,  is  your  whole  future.  But, 
understand,  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it ; 
I  am  onlj^  responsible  for  the  Legitimist 
votes.  I  have  won  over  for  you  Madame 
de  Watteville,  and  that  means  all  the 
aristocracy  of  Besaucon.  Amedee  de 
Soulas  and  Vauchelles,  who  will  vote  for 
you,  have  brought  over  the  young  people ; 
Madame  de  Watteville  wUl  get  you  the 
old  ones.  As  for  my  votes,  they  are  in- 
fallible." 

"  Who  has  influenced  Madame  de  Cha- 
voncourt, then  ?  "  asked  Savarus. 

"  Do  not  question  me,"  replied  the  abbe. 
"  Monsieur  de  Chavoncourt,  who  has  got 
three  daughters  to  marry,  is  incapable  of 
augmenting  his  fortune.  If  Vauchelles 
marries  the  first  without  a  portion,  on 
account  of  the  old  aunt,  who  will  finance 
the  marriage  contract,  what  is  to  be  done 
with  the  two  others  ?  Sidonie  is  sixteen, 
and  you  have  treasures  in  your  ambition. 
Some  one  has  said  to  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court that  it  would  be  better  to  marry 
her  daughter  than  to  send  her  husband 
to  waste  monej'  at  Paris.  This  some  one 
manages  Madame  de  Chavoncourt,  and 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt  manages  her 
husband." 

"Enough,  dear  abbe,  I  understand. 
Once  elected,  I  shall  have  some  one's 
fortune  to  make,  and  by  making  it  a 
splendid  one  I  shall  be  released  from  my 
word.  You  have  in  me  a  son,  a  man  who 
will  owe  you  all  his  happiness.  My  God  ! 
what  have  I  done  to  deserve  so  mucli  real 
friendshiiD  ?  " 

"You  have  procured  the  triumph  of  the 
chapter,"  said  the  vicar-general,  with  a 
suule.  "Now,  keep  all  this  as  secret  as 
the  tomb.  We  are  nothing ;  we  do  noth- 
ing. If  they  knew  that  we  meddled  with 
the  elections,  we  should  be  eaten  up  raw 
by  the  puritans  of  the  Left,  who  do  woree, 
and  blamed  by  some  of  our  own  side,  who 
want  everything.  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court does  not  suspect  my  participation 


288 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


in  all  this.  I  have  only  confided  in  Ma- 
dame de  Watte ville,  on  whom  we  may 
rely  as  on  ourselves." 

"I  will  bring'  you  the  duchess  for  you 
to  give  us  your  blessing  !  "  exclaimed  the 
votaiy  of  ambition. 

After  having  shown  out  the  old  priest, 
Albert  retired  to  rest  in  the  cradle  of 
power. 

At  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening-  of  the 
next  day,  as  every  one  may  imagine,  the 
salons  of  Madame  the  Bai'oness  de  Watte- 
ville  were  filled  with  the  Bisontine  aris- 
tocracy, specially  convoked.  The  excep- 
tion of  taking-  part  in  the  elections  to 
please  the  daughter  of  the  De  Rupts  was 
being  discussed.  It  was  known  that  the 
former  maitre  des  requetes,  the  secretary 
of  one  of  the  most  faithful  ministers  of 
the  elder  branch,  was  to  be  introduced. 
Madame  de  Chavoncourt  had  come  with 
her  second  daughter,  Sidonie,  divinely 
dressed ;  while  the  eldest,  sure  of  her 
suitor,  had  not  had  recourse  to  any  of 
the  artifices  of  the  toilet.  The  Abbe  de 
Grancey  showed  his  fine  noble  counte- 
nance from  group.to  group,  listening,  and 
apparently  meddling  in  nothing,  but  utter- 
ing those  incisive  phrases  which  sum  up 
and  decide  the  question. 

"If  the  elder  branch  returns,"' said  he 
to  an  old  statesman  of  seventy,  ''  what 
politicians  will  it  find  ?  Alone  on  his 
bench,  Berryer  does  not  know  what  to 
do  ;  if  he  had  sixty  supporters,  he  would 
be  able  to  embarrass  the  Government  on 
a  great  many  occasions,  and  Inight  upset 
ministries  !  They  are  going  to  elect  the 
Duke  de  Fitz-James  at  Toulouse.  You 
will  make  Monsieur  de  Wattevillegain  his 
cause.  If  you  vote  for  Monsieur  de  Sav- 
arus,  the  Republicans  will  vote  with  you 
rather  than  with  the  juste  milieu"  etc., 
etc. 

At  nine  o'clock,  Albert  had  not  arrived. 
Madame  de  Watteville  was  disposed  to 
consider  such  tardiness  an  insult. 

"Dear  baroness,"  said  Madame  de 
Chavoncourt,  "do  not  let  us  make  such 
serious  affairs  depend  on  a  trifle.  A  var- 
nished boot  that  is  a  long  while  drying — 
or  perhaps  a  consultation  detains  Mon- 
sieur de  Savarus." 


Rosalie  gave  Madame  de  Chavoncourt 
a  queer  look. 

"She  is  very  kind  to  Monsieur  de  Sav- 
arus," she  whispered  to  her  mother. 

"Because,"  replied  the  baroness,  with 
a  smile,  "there  is  a  marriage  on  foot 
between  Sidonie  and  Monsieur  de  Sav- 
arus." 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  suddenlj' 
moved  toward  a  window  which  looked 
on  to  the  garden. 

At  ten  o'clock,  Albert  de  Savarus  still 
had  not  appeared.  The  storm  which  had 
been  rumbling  burst.  Some  of  the  nobles 
sat  down  to  play,  fuiding  the  state  of 
things  intolerable.  The  Abbe  de  Grancey, 
who  did  not  know  what  to  think,  went 
toward  the  wmdow  in  which  Rosalie  was 
hidden,  and  said  aloud,  in  his  extreme 
stupefaction,  "He  must  be  dead."  The 
vicar-general  went  out  into  the  garden, 
followed  by  Monsieur  de  Watteville  and 
his  daughter,  and  they  all  three  Avent  up 
to  the  kiosk.  Everything  was  shut  up  at 
Albert's  ;  no  light  was  visible. 

"Jerome!"  cried  Rosalie,  seeing  the 
servant  in  the  courtyard. 

The  Abbe  de  Grancey  looked  at  her 
with  astonishment. 

"Where  is  your  master  ?  "  said  she  to 
the  servant,  who  had  come  to  the  foot  of 
the  wall. 

"  Gone  away  in  a  post-chaise,  mademoi- 
selle." 

"He  is  lost,"  exclaimed  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  "  or  happy  !  " 

The  joy  of  triumph  was  not  well  enough 
suppressed  on  Rosalie's  countenance  for 
the  vicar-general  not  to  divine  it,  but  he 
feigned  not  to  notice  anything. 

"  What  call  this  young  girl  have  had 
to  do  with  all  this  ? "  the  priest  asked 
himself. 

They  all  three  returned  to  the  salons, 
when  Monsieur  de  Watteville  aimounced 
the  strange,  the  singular,  the  astounding 
news  of  the  departure  of  the  barrister 
Albert  Savaron  de  Savarus  in  a  post- 
chaise,  without  any  one  knowing  the  mo- 
tives of  this  disappearance.  At  half-past 
eleven,  there  remained  only  fifteen  per- 
sons, among  whom  were  Madame  de 
Chavoncourt  and  the  Abbe  de  Godenars 


ALBERT    SA VARUS. 


289 


(another  vicar-general,  a  taan  of  about 
forty  who  wanted  to  be  a  bishop),  the 
two  young'  Misses  de  Chavoncourt  and 
Monsieur  de  Vauchelles,  the  Abbe  de 
Grancey,  Rosalie,  Amedee  de  Soulas,  and 
a  retired  functionary,  one  of  the  most 
influential  personages  of  the  high  society 
of  Besancon,  who  took  a  great  interest  in 
the  election  of  Albert  Savarus.  The  Abbe 
de  Grancey  placed  himself  by  the  side  of 
the  baroness  in  order  to  look  at  Rosalie, 
whose  face,  generally  pale,  now  showed  a 
feverish  color. 

"What  can  have  happened  to  Monsieur 
de  Savarus  ?  "  asked  Madame  de  Chavon- 
court. 

At  this  moment,  a  servant  in  liverj^ 
brought  a  letter  on  a  silver  waiter  to  the 
Abbe  de  Grancey. 

"  Read  it,"  said  the  baroness. 

The  vicar-general  read  the  letter,  and 
saw  Rosalie  suddenly  turn  as  white  as 
her  handkercliief. 

"She  recognizes  the  writing,"  he  said 
to  himself,  after  having  given  the  young 
girl  a  look  over  his  spectacles.  He  folded 
up  the  letter  and  cooUj^put  it  in  his  pocket 
without  saying  a  word.  In  three  minutes 
he  received  from  Rosalie  three  looks  which 
sufficed  to  tell  him  all.  "  She  loves  Al- 
bert Savarus  !  "  thought  the  vicar-gen- 
eral. He  g-ot  up,  bowed,  took  a  few 
steps  toward  the  cl*oor,  and  iia  the  second 
salon  he  was  rejoined  by  Rosalie,  who 
said  to  him — " 

'•  Monsieur  de  Grancey,  it  is  from 
Albert!" 

"  How  can  you  know  his  Avriting  well 
enough  to  distinguish  it  so  far  off  ?  " 

The  young  girl,  caught  in  the  depths 
of  her  impatience  and  her  passion,  gave 
an  answer  the  abbe  thought  sublime. 

"Because  I  love  him!  What  is  the 
matter  ?  "  she  said,  after  a  pause. 

"He  abandons  his  election,"  replied 
the  abbe. 

Rosalie  placed  her  finger  on  her  lips. 
"1  claim  the  secrecj'  of  a  confession," 
said  she,  before  entering  the  salon.  "  If 
there  is  no  election,  there  will  be  no  mar- 
riage with  Sidonie  !  " 

The  next  morning,  while  going  to  mass, 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  learned  from 

Balzac — J 


Mariette  part  of  the  circumstances  which 
had  caused  the  disappearance  of  Albert 
at  the  most  critical  moment  of  his  life. 
"  Mademoiselle,  in  the  morning  there 
arrived  at  the  Hotel  National,  from 
Paris,  an  old  gentleman  in  his  own  car- 
riage— a  handsome  carriage,  with  four 
horses,  an  outrider,  and  a  servant.  In 
fact,  Jerome,  who  saw  the  carriage  when 
it  was  going  away,  maintains  that  he 
could  only  have  been  a  prince  or  a 
milord." 

"  Was  there  a  closed  coronet  on  the 
carriage  ?  "  said  RosaUe. 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  Mariette. 
"  While  it  was  striking  two,  he  came  to 
Monsieur  Savarus's  house  and  sent  up 
his  card;  and,  on  seeing  it,  monsieur, 
Jerome  says,  tui-ned  as  white  as  a  sheet, 
and  told  them  to  show  him  in.  As  he 
locked  the  door  himself,  it  is  impossible 
to  know  what  the  old  gentleman  and 
the  barrister  said  to  each  other,  but  they 
remained  together  about  an  hour  ;  after 
which  the  old  gentleman,  accompanied 
by  the  barrister,  called  up  the  servant. 
Jerome  saw  this  servant  go  out  with  an 
immen.se  parcel,  four  feet  long,  which 
looked  like  a  large  sheet  o{  canvas.  The 
old  gentleman  had  a  large  bundle  of 
papers  in  his  hands.  The  barrister, 
paler  than  if  he  were  dying — he  who  is 
so  proud  and  so  dignified — was  in  a  piti- 
able state.  But  he  behaved  so  respect- 
full\'  to  the  old  gentleman  that  he  could 
not  have  been  more  ceremonious  with  the 
king.  Jerome  and  Monsieur  Albert  Sav- 
aron  accompanied  this  old  man  to  his 
carriage,  which  was  all  ready,  with  its 
four  horses  harnessed.  The  courier 
started  on  the  stroke  of  three.  Mon- 
sieur went  straight  to  the  prefecture, 
and  from  there  to  Monsieur  Gentillefs, 
who  sold  him  the  old  traveling  carriage 
of  the  late  Madame  de  Saint  Vier  ;  then 
he  ordered  post  horses  at  six  o'clock.  He 
went  home  again  to  pack  up ;  no  doubt, 
he  wrote  several  letters;  finally,  he  ar- 
ranged all  his  affairs  with  Monsieur  Gi- 
rardet,  who  came  and  stayed  tUl  seven 
o'clock.  Jei'ome  took  a  note  to  Monsieur 
Boucher's,  where  monsieur  was  expected 
to  dinner;  and  then,  at  half-past  seven. 


290 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  barrister  went  awaj',  leaving'  Jerome 
three  month's  wages,  and  telling  him  to 
look  for  a  place.  He  left  his  keys  with 
Monsiem-  Girardet,  whom  he  accompanied 
home,  and  where,  Jerome  says,  he  had 
.'lome  soup,  for  Monsieur  Girardet  had  not 
dined  at  half-past  seven.  Wlien  Monsieur 
Savaron  grot  into  his  carriag-e  again,  he 
was  like  a  corpse.  Jerome,  who  natur- 
ally' saluted  his  master,  heai-d  him  say 
to  the  postilion,  'The  Geneva  road.'  " 

"  Did  Jerome  inquire  the  stranger's 
name  at  the  Hotel  National  ?" 

"  As  the  old  gentleman  was  on\y  pass- 
ing through,  they  did  not  ask  him  for  it. 
The  servant,  no  doubt  according  to  orders, 
did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  speak  French." 

"  And  the  letter  the  Abbe  de  Grancey 
received  so  late  ?  "  said  Rosalie. 

"  It  was,  no  doubt,  Monsieur  Gii^ardet 
who  must  have  sent  it  to  him  ;  but  Jerome 
says  that  poor  Monsieur  Girardet,  who  is 
very  fond  of  the  bai'rister  Savaron,  was 
quite  as  much  upset  as  he.  He  who  came 
with  myster\'  goes  away  with  mystery, 
Mademoiselle  Galard  saj'S." 

From  the  date  of  this  narrative.  Made- 
moiselle de  Watteville  had  a  pensive  and 
abstracted  air,  which  was  visible'  to  all 
the  world.  It  is  needless  to  speak  of  the 
sensation  the  disappearance  of  the  barris- 
ter Savaron  caused  in  Besancon.  It  was 
known  that  the  prefect  had  consented, 
with  the  best  grace  in  the  world,  to  send 
him  immediately  a  foreign  passport,  for 
by  this  means  he  got  rid  of  his  onty  ad- 
versary. The  next  day,  Monsieur  de 
Chavoncourt  was  at  once  elected  by  a 
majority  of  a  hundred  and  forty  votes. 

"  Jean  went  away  as  he  came,"  said  an 
elector,  on  learning  the  flight  of  Albert 
Savaron. 

This  event  served  to  fortify  the  preju- 
dices which  exist  at  Besancon  against 
strangers,  and  which,  two  years  before, 
had  been  cor^-oborated  with  regard  to  the 
affair  of  the  Republican  journal ;  and  in 
ten  days  afterward  no  more  was  heard 
about  Albert  de  Savarus.  Three  persons 
only,  the  attorney  Girardet,  the  vicar- 
general,  and  Rosalie,  were  seriously  af- 
fected by  this  disappearance.  Girardet 
knew  that  the  stranger  with  white  hair 


was  the  Prince  Soderini,  for  he  had  seen 
his  card,  and  he  told  the  vicar-general ; 
but  Rosalie,  much  better  informed  than 
they,  had  known  for  three  months  the 
news  of  the  death  of  the  Duke  d'Argaiolo. 

In  the  month  of  April,  183G,  nobody 
had  had  any  news  or  heard  anything  of 
Monsieur  Albert  de  Savarus.  Jerome 
and  Mariette  were  about  to  be  mari'ied, 
but  the  baroness  confidentially  told  her 
maid  to  wait  until  the  marriage  of  her 
daughter,  and  then  the  two  ceremonies 
could  take  place  together. 

"It  is  time  to  get  Rosalie  married," 
said  the  baroness  one  day  to  Monsieur  de 
Watteville;  "she  is  nineteen,  and  she 
has  altered  terribly  the  last  few  months." 

"I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with 
her,"  said  the  baron. 

'•'  When  fathers  do  not  know  what  is 
the  matter  with  their  daughters,  mothers 
guess  it,"  said  the  baroness.  "We  must 
mari-y  her." 

"  I  am  quite  willing,"  said  the  baron  ; 
"and,  for  my  part,  I  will  give  her  the 
Rouxeys,  now  that  the  tribunal  has  ar- 
ranged matters  between  us  and  the  com- 
mune of  the  Riceys  hy  fixing  my  bounda- 
ries at  three  hundred  metres  from  the 
foot  of  the  Dent  de  Vilard.  They  are 
digging  a  dyke  to  receive  all  the  watef 
and  carry  it  into  the  lake.  The  commune 
has  not  appealed,  and  the  judgment  is 
final." 

"  You  have  not  yet  guessed,"  said  the 
baroness,  ' '  that  this  judgment  costs  me 
thirty  thousand  francs,  which  I  had  to 
give  to  Chantonnil.  That  is  all  this  peas- 
ant wanted  ;  he  appears  to  win  the  cause 
for  his  commune,  and  he  sells  us  peace. 
If  you  give  away  the  Rouxeys,  you  will 
have  nothing  left,"  said  the  baroness. 

"I don't  want  much,"  said  the  baron; 
"  I  am  going  fast." 

"  You  eat  like  an  ogre." 

"Exactly  so.  It  is  no  use  eating;  I 
feel  my  legs  getting  weaker  and  weaker.' 

"That  is  from  turning,"  said  the  bar- 
oness. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  baron. 

"We  will  marry  Rosalie  to  Monsieur 
de  Soulas.  If  you  give  her  the  Rouxej'S, 
reserve  to  yourself  a  life  interest;  I  will 


ALBERT    SAVARUS 


291 


gfive  them  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year 
in  the  funds.  Our  children  will  live  here, 
and  I  do  not  see  that  they  will  be  much 
to  be  pitied." 

"No,  I  will  g-ive  them  the  Rouxeys 
altogether.  Rosalie  is  fond  of  the  Rou- 
xe^'S." 

"  You  are  very  odd  with  your  daughter! 
You  do  not  ask  me  if  I  am  fond  of  the 
Rouxej-s." 

Rosalie,  summoned  on  the  spot,  learned 
that  she  was  to  marry  Monsieur  Amedee 
de  Soulas  in  the  early  part  of  the  month 
of*  May. 

"  I  thank  you,  mother,  and  you,  father, 
for  having  thought  of  my  settlement,  but 
I  do  not  wish  to  be  married.  I  am  very 
happy  to  stay  with  you." 

"A  mere  excuse!"  said  the  baroness. 
"  You  do  not  like  Monsieur  the  Count  de 
Soulas;  that  is  all." 

"If  you  wish  to  know  the  truth,  I  will 
never  marry  Monsieur  de  Soulas." 

"  Oh  !  the  never  of  a  girl  of  nineteen  !  " 
said  the  baroness,  with  a  bitter  smile. 

"'  The  never  of  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville,"  replied  Rosalie,  with  a  firm  accent. 
"  My  father  does  not  intend,  I  think,  to 
marry  mo  without  mj'  consent  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  indeed  !  "  said  tlje  poor  baron, 
looking  affectionately  at  his  daughter. 

"Oh!  well,"  answered  tlie  baroness, 
sharply,  restraining  the  rage  of  a  devotee 
surprised  at  seeing  herself  unexpectedly 
defied,  "take  on  yourself,  Monsieur  de 
Watte^^lle,  to  provide  for  your  daughter. 
Thuik  on  it  well,  mademoiselle ;  if  you  do 
not  marry  according  to  my  wishes,  you 
will  get  nothing  from  me  for  your  estab- 
lishment." 

The  quarrel  thus  commenced  between 
IMadame  de  "Watteville  and  the  baron, 
who  supported  his  daughter,  went  so  far 
that  Rosalie  and  her  father  were  obliged 
to  spend  tlie  fine  season  at  the  Rouxeys — 
living  in  the  Hotel  de  Rupt  became  insup- 
portable to  them.  It  became  known  then 
in  Besancon  that  Mademoiselle  de  Watte- 
ville had  positively  refused  Monsieur  the 
Count  de  Soulas.  After  their  marriage, 
Jerome  and  Mariette  went  to  the  Rouxeys, 
to  succeed  Modinier  some  day.  The  baron 
repaired  and  restored  the  hermitage  ac- 


cording to  the  taste  of  his  daughter.  On 
learning  that  these  repah's  had  cost  about 
sixty  thousand  francs,  that  Rosalie  and 
her  father  were  building  a  hot-house,  the 
baroness  recognized  a  certain  leaven  of 
canning  in  her  daughter.  The  baron 
bought  several  adjoining  pieces  of  ground, 
and  a  small  estate  of  the  value  of  thirty 
thousand  francs.  Madame  de  Watteville 
was  told  that,  away  from  her,  Rosalie 
showed  herself  a  superior  girl ;  she  studied 
the  means  of  improving  the  Rouxeys,  had 
a  habit  made,  and  rode  on  horseback. 
Her  father,  whose  happiness  she  studied, 
who  complained  no  longer  of  his  health, 
and  got  fat,  accompanied  her  in  her  rides. 
On  the  approach  of  the  fete  of  the  baron- 
ess, who  was  named  Louise,  the  vicar- 
general  came  to  the  Rouxeys,  no  doubt 
sent  \>y  Madame  de  Watteville  and  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  to  neg"otiate  a  peace  be- 
tween the  mother  and  daughter. 

"  That  little  Rosalie  has  got  a  head  on 
her  shoulders,"  they  said  in  Besancon. 

After  ha^'ing  nobly  paid  the  ninety  thou- 
sand francs  expended  on  the  Rouxeys,  the 
baroness  remitted  to  her  husband  about 
a  thousand  francs  a  month  to  live  there. 
She  did  not  want  to  put  herself  in  the 
wrong.  The  father  and  daughter  were 
perfectly  willing  to  return  to  Besancon 
on  the  15th  of  August,  to  stay  then  until 
the  end  of  the  month.  When  the  vicar- 
general  took  Rosalie  aside,  after  dinner, 
to  open  the  question  of  the  marriage, 
gi\-ing  her  to  understand  that  she  must 
not  reckon  any  longer  on  Albert,  of  whom 
nothing  had  been  heard  for  a  year,  he  was 
cut  short  by  a  gesture  from  Rosalie.  This 
eccentric  girl  seized  Monsieur  de  Grancey 
by  the  arm,  and  led  him  to  a  seat  under 
a  clump  of  rhododendrons,  from  which 
the  lake  was  visible. 

"Listen,  dear  abbe — you  whom  I  love 
as  much  as  my  father,  for  aou  have 
shown  3'our  affection  for  my  Albert — I 
must  at  last  confess  it.  I  have  com- 
mitted crimes  to  become  his  wife,  and 
he  must  be  my  husband.  Look  here ! 
Read  this." 

She  held  out  to  him  a  number  of  the 
"  Gazette  "  which  she  had  in  the  pocket  of 
her  apron,  pointing  to  the  following  ax- 


292 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


tide  under  the  heading-  of  Florence,  the 
25th  of  May  :— 

"The  marriag-e  of  His  Grace  the  Duke 
de  Rhotore,  eldest  son  of  His  Grace  the 
Duke  de  Chaulieu,  late  ambassador,  with 
Her  Grace  the  Duchess  d'Argaiolo,  Prin- 
cess Soderini  by  birth,  was  celebrated 
with  great  splendor.  The  numerous  en- 
tertainments given  on  the  occasion  of  this 
marriage  still  enliven  the  city  of  Florence. 
The  fortune  of  the  Duchess  d'Argaiolo  is 
one  of  the  most  considerable  in  Italy,  the 
late  duke  ha%ing  left  her  his  universal 
legatee." 

"The  woman  he  loved  is  married," said 
she.     "  I  separated  them  !  " 

"  You  !    And  how  ?  "  said  the  abbe. 

Rosalie  was  about  to  answer,  when  a 
loud  cry,  uttered  by  two  gardeners  and 
preceded  by  tlie  sound  of  a  bodj'  falling' 
into  the  water,  interrupted  her.  She  g-ot 
up  and  ran  off,  exclaiming,  "  Oh,  my 
father  !  "     She  could  see  nothing  of  the 

baron. 

« 

Wishing  to  get  at  a  fragment  of  gran- 
ite in  which  he  thought  he  could  perceive 
the  print  of  a  shell,  a  fact  which  would 
have  upset  some  system  of  g-eology.  Mon- 
sieur de  Watteville  had  got  on  the  slop- 
uig  bank,  lost  his  equilibrium,  and  rolled 
into  the  lake,  whose  g-reatest  depth  was 
naturally  at  the  foot  of  the  causeway. 
The  gardeners  had  infinite  trouble  to  get 
a  pole  within  the  baron's  reach  by  beat- 
ing about  the  spot  where  the  water  was 
bubbling ;  but  at  last  they  dragged  him 
out,  covered  with  mud,  into  which  he  had 
sunk  verj'  deeply,  and  got  all  the  deeper 
into  by  his  struggles.  Monsieur  de 
Watteville  had  dined  copiouslj- ;  diges- 
tion had  commenced,  and  it  was  inter- 
rupted. When  he  had  been  undressed, 
washed,  and  put  to  bed,  he  was  in  a 
state  so  visibly  dangerous,  that  two  ser- 
vants got.  on  horseback  and  went  off,  one 
to  Besancon,  the  other  to  fetch  the  near- 
est doctor.  When  Madame  de  Watteville 
arrived,  eight  hours  after  the  accident, 
with  the  fii-st  surgeons  and  physicians  of 
Besancon,  they  found  Monsieur  de  Watte- 
ville in  a  desperate  state,  notwithstand- 
ing the  judicious  treatment  of  the  doctor 
of  the  Rouxeys.     Fear  had  caused  a  seri- 


ous effusion  on  the  brain,  and  the  inter- 
rupted digestion  had  completed  the  de- 
struction of  the  poor  baron. 

This  death,  which  would  not  have  taken 
place,  said  Madame  de  Watteville,  if  her 
husband  had  remained  at  Besancon,  was 
attributed  by  her  to  the  resistance  of  her 
daughter,  to  whom  she  took  an  aversion., 
giving  herself  up  to  a  grief  and  regret 
evidently  exaggerated.  She  called  the 
baron  her  dear  lamb  !  The  last  Watte- 
ville was  buried  on  an  isle  in  the  lake  of 
the  Rouxeys,  where  the  baroness  erected 
a  small  Gothic  monument  in  white  mar- 
ble, similar  to  that  of  Heloise  at  Pere-la- 
Chaise. 

A  month  after  this  event,  the  baroness 
and  her  daughter  were  living  at  the  Hotel 
de  Rupt  in  somber  silence.  Rosalie  was 
a  prey  to  serious  remorse,  which  did  not 
show  itself  outwardly ;  she  accused  her- 
self of  the  death  of  her  father,  and  sus- 
pected another  misfortune,  still  greater 
in  her  eyes,  and  very  certainly  her  work — 
for  neither  the  attorney'  Girardet,  nor  the 
Abbe  de  Grancey,  had  been  able  to  pro- 
cure anj'  information  as  to  the  fate  of 
Albert.  This  silence  was  fearful.  In  a 
paroxj'sm  of  repentance,  she  felt  com- 
pelled to  rev(jal  to  the  vicar-general  the 
horrible  contrivances  \>y  which  she  had 
separated  Albert  and  Frances'ca.  It  was 
very  simple  and  very  formidable.  Made- 
moiselle de  Watteville  had  suppressed  the 
letters  of  Albert  to  the  duchess,  and  the 
one  in  which  Francesca  announced  to  her 
lover  the  illness  of  her  husband,  telling- 
him  that  she  would  not  be  able  to  answer 
him  during  the  time  that  she  should  de- 
vote, as  was  her  dutj',  to  the  djing  man. 

Accordingly,  during  the  time  that  Al- 
bert was  engrossed  in  the  elections,  the 
duchess  had  only  written  two  letters  to 
him — that  in  which  she  informed  him  of 
the  danger  of  the  Duke  d'Argaiolo,  and 
that  in  which  she  told  him  she  was  a 
widow — two  noble  and  sublime  letters, 
which  Rosalie  kept.  After  having  prac- 
ticed for  several  nights,  she  had  succeeded 
in  perfectly  imitating  Albert's  writing. 
For  the  real  letters  of  this  faithful  lover 
she  had  substituted  three  letters,  the 
drafts    of   which,   exhibited    to    the    old 


ALBERT    SAVARUS. 


293 


priest,  made  him  shudder,  so  thoi'ough- 
ly  did  the  genius  of  evil  appear  in  all 
its  perfection.  Rosalie,  holding  the  pen 
of  Alhert,  prepared  the  duchess  for  the 
change  in  the  Frenchman,  apparently 
false,  and  she  replied  to  the  news  of  the 
death  of  the  Duke  d'Argaiolo  by  the 
news  of  the  coming  marriage  of  Albert 
with  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville.  The 
two  letters  would  cross  each  other,  and 
did  cross  each  othor.  The  infernal  skill 
with  which  the  letters  were  written  so 
surprised  the  vicar-general  that  he  read 
them  over  again.  To  the  last,  Francesca, 
wounded  to  the  heart  by  a  girl  who  wished 
to  kill  the  love  of  her  rival,  had  answered 
in  these  simple  words :  "  You  are  free. 
Farewell!" 

'•Purely  moral  crimes,  which  give  no 
hold  to  human  justice,  are  the  most  in- 
famous and  the  most  odious,"  said  the 
Abbe  de  Grancey  severely.  "  God  often 
punishes  them  here  below,  and  that  is 
the  reason  of  the  frightful  misfortunes 
which  appear  inexplicable  to  us.  Of*all 
the  secret  crimes  enshrouded  in  the  mys- 
tery of  private  life,  one  of  the  most  dis- 
honorable is  that  of  breaking  the  seal 
of  a  letter,  or  surreptitiously  reading  it. 
Every  person,  whoever  it  may  be,  and  by 
whatever  motive  impelled,  who  ventures 
on  such  an  act,  has  cast  an  ineffaceable 
stain  on  his  or  her  honor.  Can  you  com- 
prehend the  touching  and  divine  story  of 
the  young  page,  falsely  accused,  and  car- 
rying a  letter  in  which  is  the  order  for 
his  death,  who  sets  out  on  Ids  way  with- 
out an  evil  thought,  and  whom  Pro\'i- 
dence  takes  under  His  protection  and 
saves  miraculouslj',  as  we  say  ?  Do  you 
know  in  what  the  miracle  consists  ?  Vir- 
tue has  a  halo  as  powerful  as  that  of  in- 
nocent childhood.  I  tell  you  these  things 
without  wishing  to  admonish  you,"  said 
the  old  priest  to  Rosalie,  with  profound 
sadness.  "  Alas !  I  am  not  now  the  grand 
penitentiary;  j-ou  are  not  kneeling  at  the 
feet  of  God  :  I  am  a  friend  terrified  at  the 
apprehension  of  your  punishment.  What 
has  become  of  poor  Albert  ?  Has  he  not 
killed  himself?  He  concealed  an  unheard- 
of  violence  under  his  aflected  calmness.  I 
comprehend  that  the  old  Prince  Soderini, 


the  father  of  the  Duchess  d'Argaiolo, 
came  to  demand  the  letters  and  portraits 
of  his  daughter.  That  was  the  thimder- 
bolt  that  fell  on  Albert's  head,  who,  no 
doubt,  went  to  endeavor  to  justify  him- 
self. But  how  is  it  that,  in  fourteen 
months,  he  has  sent  us  no  news?" 

"Oh,  if  I  marry  him,  he  will  be  so 
happy  !  " 

'■  Happy  ?  He  does  iu)t  love  you.  Be- 
sides, you  wUl  not  have  such  a  very  large 
fortune  to  bring  him.  Your  mother  has 
the  most  profound  aversion  for  you  ;  you 
gave  her  a  savage  answer,  which  wounded 
her  and  will  ruin  you,  when  she  told  you 
yesterday  that  obedience  was  the  only 
means  of  repairing  your  faults,  and  re- 
minded you  of  the  necessitj'  of  marrjong, 
and  mentioned  Amedee.  '  If  you  are  so 
found  of  him,  marry  him  yourself,  mother!' 
— did  you  or  did  you  not  say  this  to  her 
face  ?  " 

•'Yes,"  said  Rosalie. 

"  Well,  I  know  her,"  resumed  Monsieur 
de  Grancey.  In  a  few  months  she  will  be 
Countess  de  Soulas.  She  will  certainly 
have  children;  she  will  give  forty  thou- 
sand francs  a  year  to  Monsieur  de  Soulas  ; 
she  will  give  him  further  advantages,  and 
reduce  j'our  interest  in  her  property,  as 
much  as  she  can.  You  will  be  poor  ail 
her  life,  and  she  is  only  thirty-eight ! 
Your  whole  property  will  consist  of  the 
estate  of  the  Rouxeys,  and  the  few  rights 
the  liquidation  of  your  father's  succession 
may  .leave  you,  if,  indeed,  your  mother 
consents  to  give  up  her  claims  on  the 
Rouxeys.  You  have  already  managed 
affairs  very  badly  with  regard  to  the 
material  interests  of  your  life ;  with  re- 
gard to  the  sentimental,  I  consider  it 
entirelj- unhinged.  Instead  of  coming  to 
your  mother — " 

Rosalie  made  a  fierce  movement  of  the 
head. 

"  To  your  mother,"  continued  the  vicar- 
general,  "  and  to  religion^  who,  on  the 
first  movement  of  your  heart,  Avould  have 
enlightened,  counseled,  and  guided  .you, 
j-ou  have  endeavored  to  a<"t  alone,  igno- 
rant of  life  and  only  listening  to  pas- 
sion !  " 

These  words  of  wisdom  alarmed  Made- 


294 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


moiselle  de  Vv^atteville.     "But  what  shall 
I  do  ?  "  said  she,  after  a  pause. 

"  In  order  to  make  reparation  for  your 
faults,  we  must  know  the  extent  of  them," 
replied  tlie  ahbe. 

"Well,  then,  I  will  write  to  the  only 
man  who  could  have  anj'  knowledge  of 
the  fate  of  Albert — to  Monsieur  Leopold 
Hannequin,  a  notary  at  Paris,  the  friend 
of  his  youth." 

"  Do  not  write  any  more,  except  to  ren- 
der homage  to  the  truth,"  replied  the 
vicar-general.  "Confide  to  me  the  true 
letters  and  the  false  ones ;  explain  everj'-. 
thing  to  me  in  detail,  as  you  would  to  the 
director  of  your  conscience,  leaving  me  to 
find  the  means  of  expiating  your  faults, 
and  rel3'ing  upon  me.  I  will  see —  But, 
above  all,  restore  to  this  unfortunate  man 
his  innocence  toward  the  being  whom  he 
has  made  his  deity  on  this  earth.  For, 
after  having  lost  his  happiness,  Albert 
must  still  be  anxious  for  his  justifica- 
tion." 

Rosalie  promised  to  obey  the  Abbe  de 
Grancej-,  hoping  that  his  proceedings 
might  perhaps  result  in  restoring  Albert 
to  her. 

A  short  time  after  the  confession  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  a  clerk  of 
Monsieur  Leopold  Hannequin's  came  to 
Besancon,  provided  with  a  power  of  at- 
tornej'  from  Albert,  and  went  straight 
to  Monsieur  Girardet's,  to  request  him  to 
sell  the  house  belonging  to  Monsieur  Sav- 
aron. 

The  attorney  undertook  the  business 
out  of  regard  for  the  barrister.  The 
clerk  sold  the  furniture  and  was  able  to 
pay  off  with  the  proceeds  what  Albert 
owed  Girardet,  who,  at  the  time  of  the 
inexplicable  departure,  had  advanced  him 
five  thousand  francs,  undertaking  also  to 
get  in  what  was  owing  to  him.  When 
Girardet  asked  what  had  become  of  this 
noble  and  valiant  athlete,  in  whom  he  had 
taken  so  much  Interest,  the  clerk,  an- 
swered that  nobody  knew  but  his  princi- 
pal, and  that  the  notary  had  appeared 
very  much  affected  by  the  contents  of 
the  last  letter  written  by  Monsieur  Albert 
de  Savarus. 

On  learning  this  news,  the  vicar-general 


wrote  to  Leopold.    Here  is  the  answer  of 
1  he  worthy  fiotary  : — 

"A  Monsieur  I' Abbe  de  Grancey,  vicar- 
general  of  the  diocese  of  Besangon. ' 

"  Paris. 
"  Alas !  sir,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of 
any  one  to  restore  Albert  to  the  life  of 
the  world.  He  has  renounced  it.  He  is 
a  novice  at  the  Great  Chartreuse,  near 
Grenoble.  You  know  still  better  than  I,  j 
who  have  just  learned  it,  that  everything 
dies  oh  the  threshold  of  this  cloister.  Fore- 
seeing mj^  visit,  Albert  interposed  the  gen- 
eral of  the  Carthusians  between  all  my 
efforts  and  himself.  I  know  this  noble 
heart  well  enough  to  bo  certain  that  he 
is  the  victim  of  an  odious  plot,  invisible 
to  us.  But  all  is  over.  Madame  the 
Duchess  d'Argaiolo,  now  Duchess  de 
Rhetore,  seems  to  have  carried  her  cru- 
elty very  far.  At  Belgirate,  where  she 
was  no  longer  to  be  found  when  Albert 
reached  there,  she  had  left  orders  to  lead 
liini  to  believe  that  she  was  living  in 
London.  From  London,  Albert  went  to 
seek  for  the  duchess  at  Naples ;  from 
Naples,  to  Rome,  where  she  became  en- 
gaged to  the  Duke  de  Rhetore.  When 
Albert  did  meet  Madame  d'Argaiolo,  it 
was  at  Florence,  at  the  moment  of  the 
celebration  of  her  marriage.  Our  poor 
friend  fainted  away  in  the  church,  and 
has  never  been  able,  even  when  his  life 
was  in  danger,  to  obtain  an  explanation 
from  this  woman,  whose  heart  must  be 
made  of  something  inhuman .  Albert  trav- 
eled for  .seven  months  in  search  of  a  bar- 
barous creature  who  took  a  pleasure  in 
escaping  from  hijn.  He  neither  knew 
where  nor  how  to  catch  her.  1  saw  our 
poor  friend  on  his  passage  through  Paris, 
and  if  you  had  seen  him  as  I  did,  you 
would  have  perceived  that  not  a  word 
must  be  said  on  the  subject  of  the  duchess, 
unless  you  wished  to  bring  on  a  crisis  in 
which  his  reason  would  have  been  in  dan- 
ger. If  lie  had  known  his  crime,  he  migiit 
have  found  the  means  of  justification  ;  but, 
falsely  accused  of  being  married,  what 
could  he  do  ?  Albert  is  dead,  quite  dead, 
to  the  world.  He  wished  for  repose  ;  let 
us  hope'  that  the   profound   silence  and 


ALBERT    S A  VARUS. 


295 


prayer  into  which  ho  has  t  hi^own  himself 
raaj' insure  his  happiness  in  anothi'r  form. 
If  you  knew  him,  sir,  you  must  pity  him 
deeply,  and  also  pity  his  friends. — Re- 
ceive," etc. 

Immediately  on  the  receipt  of  this  letter, 
the  good  vicar-general  wrote  to  the  gen- 
eral of  the  Carthusians,  and  this  was  the 
answer  from  Albert  Savarus  : 

"  Brother  Albert  to  Monsieur  I' Abbe  de 
Orancey,  Vicar-general  of  the  dio- 
cese of  Besancon. 

"  From  the  Great  Chartreuse. 

"I  recognize,  dear  and  much  loved 
vicar-general,  your  kind  disposition  and 
still  youthful  heart  in  everything  that  the 
reverend  father  the  general  of  our  order 
has  just  communicated  to  me.  You  have 
divined  the  only  wish  that  remained  in 
the  innermost  recess  of  my  heai"t  relative 
to  the  things  of  this  world — to  have  justice 
done  to  my  sentiments  by  her  who  has  so 
ill-treated  me  !  But,  in  leaving  me  at 
libertj'^  to  make  use  of  your  offer,  the  gen- 
eral wished  to  know  whether  my  vocation 
was  firm.  He  had  tlie  signal  kindness  to 
tell  me  so  on  seeing  me  decided  to  raain- 
tt\,in  an  absolute  silence  in  this  respect. 
If  I  had  given  way  to  the  temptation  of 
rehabilitating  the  man  of  tlie  world,  the 
monk  would  have  been  dismissed  from  the 
monastery.  Grace  was  certainly  mani- 
fested ;  but,  although  short,  the  combat 
was  none  the  less  sharp  nor  cruel.  Is  not 
that  saying  clearly  enough  that  I  cannot 
re-enter  the  world  ?  And  the  pardon  you 
ask  of  me  for  the  author  of  so  many  evils 
is  full  and  entire,  without  a  thought  of  ill- 
will.  I  will  pray  to  God  to  pardon  this 
young  lady,  as  I  pardon  heV,  just  as  I 
shall  pray  Him  to  grant  a  happy  life  to 
Madrfme  de  Rhetore. 

"Ah  !  whether  it  be  death  or  the  self- 
willed  hand  of  a  young  girl  determined  on 
making  herself  loved,  or  whether  it  be  one 
of  those  blows  attributed  to  chance,  must 
we  not  always  obey  God  ?  Misfortune 
creates  in  some  souls  a  vast  desert  in 
which  the  Divine  Voice  resounds.  I  have 
discovered  too  late  the  relations  between 


this  life  and  that  which  awaits  us ;  I  am 
thoroughly'  wornout.  I  could  not  have 
served  in  the  I'anks  of  the  Church  mili- 
tant, and  I  cast  the  remains  of  a  life 
almost  extinguished  at  the  foot  of  the 
sanctuary.  This  is  the  last  time  I  shall 
write.  Only  you,  who  loved  me  and  whom 
I  loved  so  much,  could  have  made  me 
break  the  law  of  oblivion  that  I  imposed 
on  myself  on  entering  the  metropolis  of 
Saint  Bruno,  but  you  are  always  particu- 
larly named  in  the  praj'ers  of 

"  Brother  Albert. 

"November,  1836." 

"  Perhaps  all  is  for  the  best,"  said  the 
Abbe  de  Grancey  to  himself. 

When  he  had  communicated  this  letter 
to  Rosalie,  who  kissed  with  a  pious  fervor 
the  passage  that  contained  her  pardon,  he 
said  to  her,  "  Well,  now  that  he  is  lost  to 
you,  will  you  not  reconcile  yourself  with 
your  mother  by  marrying  the  Count  de 
Soulas?" 

"Albert  must  order  me  to  do  it,"  she 
said. 

"  You  see  it  is  impossible  to  consult  him ; 
the  general  would  not  allow  it." 

"  If  I  were  to  go  and  see  him  ?  " 

"Nobody  can  see  the  Carthusians. 
And,  besides,  no  woman,  except  the 
queen  of  France,  can  enter  the  Char- 
treuse," said  the  abbe.  "So  j'ou  have 
no  excuse  for  not  marrying-  j'oung  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas." 

"  I  will  not  be  the  cause  of  unhappmess 
to  my  mother,"  replied  Rosalie. 

"  Satan  !  "  exclaimed  the  vicar-general. 

Toward  the  end  of  this  winter,  the  ex- 
cellent Abbe  de  Grancey  died.  There  was 
no  longer,  between  Madame  de  Watteville 
and  her  daughter,  this  friend  who  inter- 
posed between  those  two  characters  of 
iron.  The  ^event  foreseen  by  the  vicar- 
general  took  place.  In  the  month  of  April, 
1S3T,  Madame  de  Watteville  married  Mon- 
sieur de  Soulas  at  Paris,  to  which  she  went 
by  the  advice  of  Rosalie,  who  behaved 
charmingly  and  kindly  to  her  mother. 
Madame  de  Watteville  thought  it  was 
affection  in  her  daughter,  who  wished  to 
see  Paris  solely  for  the  purpose  of  indulg- 
ing in  a  terrible  vengeance  ;  she  thought 


296 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


only  of  avenging  Savanis  bj^  making  a 
mai"tyr  of  her  rival. 

Mademoisello  do  Wattevillc,  who  had 
nearly  attained  the  age  of  twenty-onOj 
had  been  declared  of  ago.  Her  mother, 
in  order  to  settle  accounts  with  her,  had 
relin(iuished  her  rights  on  the  Rouxeys; 
and  the  daughter  had  given  her  mother 
a  discharge  as  to  the  succession  of  the 
Baron  de  Watte ville.  Rosalie  had  en- 
couraged her  mother  to  marry  the  Count 
de  Soulas,  and  to  benefit  him. 

"Let  us  each  have  our  liberty,"  she 
said  to  her. 

Madame  de  Soulas,  although  uneasy 
about  the  intentions  of  her  daughter,  was 
nevertheless  touched  by  the  nobility  of 
her  proceedings.  She  made  her  a  present 
of  six  thousand  francs  a  year  in  the  funds, 
to  satisfy  her  conscience.  As  Madame  the 
Countess  de  Soulas  had  an  income  of  forty- 
eight  thousand  francs  from  landed  prop- 
erty, and  no  power  to  alienate  it  so  as  to 
diminish  the  portion  of  Rosalie,  Mademoi- 
selle de  Watteville  was  still  a  match  of 
eighteen  hundred  thousand  francs.  The 
RoMxe\'s  might  produce,  with  the  pur- 
chases of  the  baron  and  some  improve- 
ments, twenty  thousand  francs  a  year,  be- 
sides the  advantages  of  the  house,  and  the 
fines  and  reserved  rights.  Accordingly, 
Rosalie  and  her  mother,  who  soon  acquired 
the  tone  and  fashions  of  Paris,  were  easily 
introduced  into  the  best  society.  The 
golden  key,  the  words  "Eighteen  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,"  embroidered  on 
the  corsage  of  Mademoisello  de  AVatte- 
ville,  were  of  much  more  service  to  the 
Countess  de  Soulas  than  her  pretensions 
i  la  De  Rupt,  her  misplaced  pride,  and 
even  her  rather  fine-drawn  family  con- 
nections. 

About  the  month  of  Februarj^  1838, 
Rosalie,  to  whom  a  great  many  young 
men  paid  assiduous  court,  realized  the 
project  which  had  brought  her  to  Paris. 
She  wished  to  meet  the  Duchess  de  Rhe- 
tore,  to  see  this  marvelous  woman,  and 
to  plunge  her  into  eternal  remorse.  Ac- 
cordingly, Rosalie  displayed  a  dazzling 
elegance  and  coquetry,  in  order  to  place 
herself  on  a  footing  of  equality  with  the 
duchess.     The  first  meeting  took  place  at 


the  ball  given  annually,  ever  since  1830, 
for  the  pensioners  of  the  former  civil  list. 

A  young  man,  instigated  by  Rosalie, 
said  to  the  duchess,  pointing  her  out, 
"■  There  is  a  very  remarkable  young  girl, 
with  a  very  strong  mind.  She  drove  into 
a  cloister  at  the  Great  Chartreuse  a  man 
of  great  capacitj^  Albert  de  Savarus, 
whose  existence  was  shattered  by  her. 
It  is  Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  the  fa- 
mous heiress  of  Besancon." 

The  duchess  turned  pale,  and  Rosalie 
rapidly  exchanged  with  her  one  of  those 
glances  which,  between  woman  and 
woman,  are  more  mortal  than  the  pistol- 
shots  of  a  duel.  Francesca  Soderini,  who 
suspected  the  innocence  of  Albert,  imme- 
diately left  the  ball-room,  hastily  quitting 
her  interlocutor,  who  was  incapable  of 
guessing  the  terrible  wound  he  had  just 
given  the  beautiful  Duchess  de  Rhetore. 

"  If  you  wish  to  know  any  more  about 
Albert,  come  to  the  ball  at  the  Opera  on 
Tuesday  next,  with  a  marigold  in  your 
hand." 

This  anonymous  letter,  sent  by  Rosalie 
to  the  duchess,  brought  the  unhappy 
Italian  to  the  ball,  when  Mademoiselle  de 
Watteville  placed  in  her  hands  all  Al- 
bert's letters — the  one  written  by  the 
vicar-general  to  Leopold  Hannequin,  as 
well  aS  the  answer  of  the  notary,  and 
even  that  in  which  she  had  confessed  ev- 
er\'thing  to  Monsieur  de  Grance,y. 

"I  will  not  be  the  only  one  to  suffer; 
for  we  have  been  quite  as  cruel,  one  as 
the  other,"  she  said  to  her  rival. 

After  having  enjoyed  the  stupefaction 
painted  on  the  lovely  face  of  the  duchess, 
Rosalie  made  her  escape,  appeared  no 
more  in  society,  and  returned  with  her 
mother  to  Besancon. 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville,  who  lives 
alone  on  her  estate  of  the  Rouxevs,  riding- 
on  horseback,  hunting,  refusing  her. two 
or  three  offers  a  .year,  coming  four  or  five 
times  every  winter  to  Besancon,  occupied 
in  improving  her  estate,  passed  for  an 
extremely  eccentric  person.  She  is  one 
of  the  celebrities  of  the  east. 

Madame  de  Soulas  has  tAvo  children,  a 


HOUSE    OF     THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


297 


boy  and  a  g^irl.  She  has  got  younger; 
but  young  Monsieur  de  Soulas  has  got 
considerably  older. 

"My  fortune  costs  me  dear,"'  said  he 
to  young  Chavoncourt.  "  To  know  a  de- 
votee thoroughly,  unfortunately,  you  must 
marry  her." 

Mademoiselle  de  Watteville  behaves 
like  a  truly  extraordinary  girl.  They  say 
of  her,  "She  has  her  crotchets."  She 
goes  every  year  to  look  at  the  walls  of  the 
Great  Chartreuse.  Perhaps  she  intends 
to  imitate  her  grand-uncle,  by  scaling  the 
walls  of  this  convent  to  get  at  her  hus- 
band, as  Watteville  got  over  the  walls  of 
his  monastery  to  recovery  his  liberty. 

In  1841  she  left  Besancon  with  the  in- 
tention, it  was  said,  of  being  married  : 


but  no  one  ever  knew  the  true  cause  of 
this  voyage,  from  which  she  returned  in 
a  state  which  forbade  her  ever  to  reap- 
pear in  the  world. 

By  one  of  those  hazards  to  which  the 
old  Abbe  de  Grancey  had  alluded,  she 
happened  to  be  on  the  Loire,  on  board  the 
steamer  whose  boiler  blew  up.  Made- 
moiselle de  Watteville  was  so  severely  in- 
jured that  she  lost  her  right  arm  and  her 
left  leg ;  her  face  bears  frightful  scai-s, 
which  deprive  her  of  her  beauty ;  her 
health,  subjected  to  such  horrible  trials, 
leaves  her  very  few  days  without  suffer- 
ing. In  short,  at  the  present  day  she 
never  quits  the  hermitage  of  the  Rouxeys, 
where  she  leads  a  life  entirely  devoted  to 
works  of  religion. 


VI. 


HOUSE  OF   THE  TENNIS-PLAYING  CAT. 


On  the  Rue  Saint  Denis,  near  the  comer 
of  the  Rue  du  Petit  Lion,  stood  one  of 
those  precious  houses  that  enable  histo- 
rians to  reconstruct  by  analogy  ancient 
Paris.  The  tottering  walls  of  this  rickety 
building  were  made  motley  with  hiero- 
glyphics. What  other  name  could  the 
lounger  give  to  the  X's  and  V's  traced 
on  its  front  hy  the  transverse  or  diag-onal 
pieces  of  wood  showing  through  the  paint 
in  small  parallel  cracks  ?  Evidently, when- 
ever the  lightest  cai'riage  passed  by,  each 
of  these  joists  shook  in  its  mortise.  This 
venerable  edifice  was  surmounted  \ij  a 
triangular  roof,  of  which,  before  long,  no 
model  can  be  found  in  Paris.  This  roof, 
warped  by  the  inclemency  of  the  Parisian 
climate,  projected  three  feet  over  the 
street,  as  much  to  guard  the  threshold 
of  the  door  from  the  rain  as  to  shelter 
the  wall  of  a  garret  and  its  unsilled  win- 
dow. This  upper  stoiy  was  constructed 
of  boai'ds  nailed  one  upon  another  like 
slates. 

On  a  rainy  morning  in  March,  a  young 
man,  carefully  wrapped  in  his  cloak,  stood 


under  the  awning  of  a  shop  opposite  this 
old  house,  which  he  examined  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  an  archaeologist.  This  rem- 
nant of  sixteenth-century  life  offered  the 
observer  more  than  one  problem  to  puzzle 
over.  Each  story  presented  some  peculi- 
arity :  On  the  first,  four  tall,  narrow  win- 
dows, close  together,  had  wooden  panes 
in  their  lower  part,  in  order  to  produce 
that  dim  light  by  the  aid  of  which  a  skill- 
ful tradesman  imparts  to  his  stuffs  the 
color  desired  by  his  customers.  The  young 
man  seemed  disdainful  enough  toward  this 
essential  portion  of  the  house;  his  eyes 
had  not  yet  rested  upon  it.  The  windows 
of  the  second  story,  whose  raised  blinds 
allowed  a  glimpse,  through  large  panes  of 
Bohemian  glass,  of  some  small  red  muslin 
curtains,  mterested  him  equally.  His  at- 
tention was  directed ,  especially  at  the  thu'd 
story,  to  some  humble  casements,  the 
rudely  joined  wood  of  which  made  it  wor- 
tliy  a  place  in  the  Conservatory  of  Arts 
and  Manufactures  as  a  specimen  of  the 
early  efforts  of  French  carpentry.  These 
casements  had  little  panes  of  so  green  a 


298 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


color  that,  but  for  his  excellent  sight,  the 
youngr  man  could  not  have  perceived  the 
cloth  curtains  with  blue  squares  that  con- 
cealed the  mysteries  of  this  apartment 
from  profane  eyes. 

The  observer,  wearied  by  his  unavailing- 
contemplation  or  by  the  silence  in  wliich 
the  house  was  buried,  as  well  as  all  that 
part  of  towTi,  occasionally  dropped  his 
g-lance  toward  the  lower  floors.  An  in- 
voluntary smile  then  curled  his  lips,  as  he' 
saw  the  shop  and  its  many  ludicrous  feat- 
ures. A  large  piece  of  wood,  horizontally 
supported  upon  four  pillars  that  seemed 
bent  under  the  weight  of  the  decrepit 
house,  had  been  set  olT  "by  as  many  coats 
of  different  paints  as  the  cheek  of  an  old 
duchess.  In  the  middle  of  this  broad, 
delicately  carved  beam  there  was  an  an- 
tique picture  representing  a  cat  playing 
tennis. 

This  painting  was  the  cause  of  the 
young  man's  merriment.  And  yet  the 
cleverest  of  modern  painters  could  not 
have  invented  a  more  comical  caricature. 
The  animal  held  a  racket  as  large  as  him- 
self in  one  of  his  f6re-paws,  and  stood 
erect  on  his  hind-paws  ready  to  strike  an 
enormous  ball  that  a  man  in  an  embroid- 
ered coat  was  about  to  toss  toward  him. 
The  drawing,  colors,  accessories — all  had 
been  so  treated  as  to  make  one  believe 
that  the  artist  had  desired  to  make  fun 
of  the  tradesman  and  of  the  passers-by. 
Time  had  made  this  ingenious  painting 
more  grotesque  by  some  uncertainties 
that  were  well  fitted  to  disturb  truth- 
loving  strollers.  Thus,  the  cat's  spotted 
tail  was  cut  up  in  such  a  manner  that 
it  might  have  been  taken  for  a  looker-on 
at  the  game — so  big,  long,  and  bushy  were 
the  tails  of  our  ancestors'  cats.  At  the 
right  of  the  picture,  on  an  azure  back- 
ground that  imperfectly  disguised  the 
rottenness  of  the  wood,  the  passers  read  : 
"  Guillaume  "  and  at  the  left :  "  Successor 
of  M.  Chevrel."  The  sun  and  the  rain 
had  corroded  the  greater  part  of  the  or- 
molu parsimoniously  applied  on  the  letters 
of  this  inscription,  in  which  the  U's  re- 
placed the  F's,  and  reciprocally,  according 
to  the  rules  of  our  ancient  orthography. 
In  order  to  bring  down  the  pride  of  those 


who  believe  the  world  is  becoming  more 
intelligent  from  day  to  day,  and  modern 
charlatanism  surpasses  everything,  it  may 
be  here  remarked,  that  these  signs,  whose 
etymologj'^  seems  strange  to  more  than 
one  Parisian  merchant,  are  the  dead  pict- 
ures of  the  living  pictures,  by  the  aid  of 
which  our  enterprising  ancestors  suc- 
ceeded in  enticing  customer's  into  their 
shops.  Thus  the  Spinning  Pig,  the  Green 
Ape,  etc.,  w^re  animals  in  cages,  whose 
cleverness  astonished  the  people  passing, 
and  whose  education  proved  the  fifteenth 
century  shop-keeper's  patience.  Curiosi- 
ties of  this  kind  enriched  their  lucky  pos- 
sessors more  speedily  than  such  signs  as 
— Providence,  Good  Faith,  Grace  of 
God,  and  Beheading  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  that  may  still  be  seen  in  the  Rue 
Saint  Denis. 

The  unknown  man,  however,  did  not 
stand  there  to  admire  this  cat,  which  a 
moment's  attention  would  have  sufficed 
to  engrave  upon  the  memory.  This  young 
geiftleman  had  his  peculiarities  as  well. 
His  mantle,  folded  in  the  style  of  ancient 
drapery,  allowed  a  glimpse  of  an  elegant 
pair  of  shoes,  the  more  remarkable  amid 
the  Parisian  mud,  because  he  wore  white- 
silk  stockings,  the  spots  on  which  evi- 
denced his  impatience.  Doubtless  he  had 
just  come  from  some  wedding-party'  or 
ball,  for  at  this  early  hour  he  carried- 
white  gloves  in  his  hand,  and  the  ringlets 
of  his  black  hair,  out  of  curl  and  hanging 
over  his  shoulders,  showed  it  had  been 
dressed  a  la  Caracalla,  a  fashion  dlie  as 
much  to  David's  school  of  painting  as  to 
that  infatuation  for  Greek  and  Roman 
forms  that  marked  the  first  years  of  the 
present  century. 

Despite  the  noise  made  by  a  few  belated 
Idtchen-gardeners  galloping  toward  the 
great  market,  this  busj^  street  had  then 
a  calm  whose  magic  is  known  oul.y  to 
those  who  have  strolled  through  deserted 
Paris  at  such  hours  as  its  clatter,  silenced 
for  a  time,  is  born  again  and  may  be  heard 
in  the  distance  like  the  gruff  voice  pf  the 
sea. 

This  singular  young  man  must  have 
been  as  interesting  to  the  people  of  the 
Tennis- Playing  Cat  as  the  Tennis-Play- 


HOUSE    OF     THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


299 


ing  Cat  was  to  him.  A  cravat  of  daz- 
zling' whiteness  made  his  troubled  face 
look  paler  than  it  really  was.  The  fire, 
alternately  dull  and  sparkling,  of  his 
black  eyes  harmonized  well  with  the  odd 
contours  of  his  visage,  with  his  large  and 
sinuous  mouth,  which  contracted  in  smil- 
ing. His  brow,  frowning  in  violent  vex- 
ation, had  something  unpleasant  about 
it.  Is  not  the  brow  the  most  character- 
istic feature  of  a  man  ?  Whenever  .that 
of  the  unknown  expressed  passion,  the 
wrinkles  forming  in  it  caused  a  sort  of 
terror  by  the  vigor  with  which  they  were 
pronounced ;  but  when  he  regained  his 
calmness,  so  easily  disturbed,  there 
breathed  in  it  a  luminous  charm  which 
made  attractive  this  physiognomy  where 
joy,  grief,  love,  anger,  disdain,  burst 
forth  in  so  contagious  a  manner  that 
the  coldest  of  men  must  have  been  im- 
pressed. 

This  unknown  gentleman  was  so  vexed 
at  the  moment  that  the  window  of  the 
attic  was  hastily  opened  that  he  did  not 
notice  appearing  there  three  merry  faces, 
plump,  white,  and  rosy,  but  as  common- 
place as  are  the  figures  of  Commerce 
sculptured  on  monuments.  These  three 
faces,  framed  by  the  window,  reminded 
one  of  the  heswls  of  chubby  angels  scat- 
tered through  the  clouds  that  accompany- 
thev  Eternal  Father.  The  apprentices 
breathed  in  the  exhalations  of  the  street 
with  an  eagerness  that  demonstrated  how 
hot  and  mephitic  must  be  the  air  of  their 
garret.  After  pointing  out  this  strange 
sentinel,  the  shop-boy,  who  was  apparent- 
ly the  jolliest,  disappeared,  and  came  back 
holding  in  his  hand  an  instrument  whose 
inflexible  metal  has  of  late  been  replaced 
by  supple  leather ;  then  the}'  all  assumed 
a  malicious  expression  in  looking  at  the 
idler,  and  sprinkled  him  with  a  fine  and 
whitish  rain  the  perfume  of  which  proved 
that  these  three  chins  had  just  been 
shaved.  Standing  on  tip-toe  and  drawing 
back  in  their  garret  to  enjoy  their  victim's 
wrath,  the  shop-boys  stopped  laughing  as 
they  saw  the  heedless  disdain  with  which 
the  young  man  shook  his  cloak,  and  the 
profound  contempt  depicted  on  his  counte- 
nance when  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  the  empty 


window.  Just  at  that  moment  a  white  and 
delicate  hand  raised  the  lower  part  of  one 
of  the  rude  casements  of  the  third  story, 
by  sliding  it  up  and  fastening  it  with  an 
arrangement  which  often  unexpectedly 
lets  fall  the  heavy  sash  that  it  ought  to 
hold  fast.  The  man  in  the  street  was  re- 
warded for  his  long  waiting. 

A  young  girl's  face,  fresh  as  one  of 
those  white  chalices  that  flower  upon  the 
bosom  of  waters,  showed  itself,  crowned 
with  a  quilling  of  rumpled  muslin  that 
gave  her  head  a  look  of  admirable  inno- 
cence. Although  covered  with  a  brown 
stuff,  her  neck  and  shoulders  could  be 
perceived,  thanks  to  the  slight  interstices 
produced  by  her  tossing  about  in  sleep. 
No  expression  of  constraint  marred  the 
artlessness  of  that  face,  or  the  serenity  of 
those  eyes — similar  to  those  immortalized 
in  advance  by  the  sublime  compositions 
of  Raphael.  Here  was  the  same  grace 
and  the  same  tranquillity  that  have  now 
become  proverbial  in  his  Madonnas. 
There  existed  a  charming  contrast  be- 
tween the  youth  of  this  figure's  cheeks, 
on  which  sleep  had  put  in  relief,  as  it 
were,  a  superabundance  of  life,  and  the 
old  age  of  that  massive  window  with  its 
rude  shapes  and  blackened  sUl.  Like 
those  flowers  of  the  day  which  in  the 
morning  have  not  yet  unfolded  their  tu- 
nic rolled  up  b^'  the  cold  of  night,  the 
hardly-awake  young  woman  let  her  blue 
ej'es  roam  over  the  neighboring  roofs  and 
looked  up  at  the  sky ;  then,  by  the  force 
of  habit,  she  lowered  them  to  the  somber 
regions  of  the  street,  where  they  encoun- 
tered at  once  the  eyes  of  her  adorer. 
Coquetry  doubtless  made  her  suffer  at 
being  seen  in  undress ;  she  stepped  back 
hastily-,  the  worn  window  -  fastening 
slipped,  the  sash  dixjpped  with  a  rapid- 
ity which,  in  our  time,  has  given  a  bad 
name  to  this  simple  invention  of  our  an- 
cestors, and  the  vision  disappeared. 

To  the  young  man-the  most  brilliant  of 
the  morning's  stars  seemed  to  have  been 
suddenly  obscured  by  a  cloud. 

During-  these  slight  occurrences,  the 
heavy  inside  shutters  guarding  the  light 
shop-windows  of  the  Tennis-Plaijing  Cat 
were  taken  down  as  if  by  magic.     The  old 


300 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


door  with  its  knockor  was  thrown  back 
upon  the  inner  wail  of  the  house  by  a  ser- 
vant, probablj'-  contemporary  with  the 
sig-n,  who  with  a  trembling  hand  at- 
tached to  it  the  square  piece  of  cloth  on 
which  was  embroidered  in  yellow  silk  the 
name  of  "  Guillaume,  Successor  of  M. 
Che\Tel." 

It  would  have  been  difficult  for  a 
strang'er  to  g-ness  the  kind  of  business 
carried  on  by  M.  Guillaume.  Through 
the  big  iron  bars  protecting  his  shop  on 
the  outside,  one  could  barely  discern  pack- 
ages wrapped  in  brown  cloth  and  as  nu- 
merous as  are  the  herrings  crossing  the 
ocean.  Notwithstanding  the  apparent 
simplicitj'-  of  this  Gothic  fagade,  M.  Guil- 
laume was,  of  all  the  dry-goods  dealers 
of  Paris,  the  one  whose  store  was  always 
the  best  stocked,  whose  business  was  the 
most  extensive,  and  whose  commercial 
repute  labored  under  not  the  least  sus- 
picion. If  any  of  his  fellow-tradesmen 
took  government  contracts  without  hav- 
ing the  requisite  quantity  of  cloth,  he  was 
always  ready  to  furnish  them  with  it,  how- 
ever considerable  might  be  the  number  of 
pieces  called  for.  The  wily  merchant 
knew  a  thousand  ways  of  appropriating 
the  biggest  profit  without  being  obliged, 
like  them,  to  run  after  influential  persons, 
to  have  recourse  to  mean  tricks  or  rich 
bribes.  If  his  fellow-tradesmen  could 
only  pay  him  in  excellent  notes  with 
rather  a  long  time  to  run,  he  referred 
them  to  his  notary  as  an  accommodating 
person,  and  managed  to  extract  a  second 
profit  from  them  by  this  expedient,  which 
made  the  merc]\ants  of  the  Rue  Saint 
Denis  say  as  a  proverb  :  "  God  deliver 
you  from  M.  Guillaume's  notary  !  "  to  in- 
dicate an  extortionate  discount. 

The  old  merchant  happened  to  be  stand- 
ing on  the  threshold  of  his  shop,  as  by  a 
miracle,  at  the  very  moment  the  domestic 
withdrew.  Monsieur  Guillaume  looked 
at  the  Rue  Saint  Denis,  the  neighboring 
shops,  and  the  weather,  like  a  man  land- 
ing at  Havre  and  seeing  France  once 
more  after  a  long  voyage.  Thoroughly 
convinced  that  nothing  had  changed  dur- 
ing his  sleep,  he  then  noticed  the  man 
doing  sentry  duty,  who,  on  his  side,  con- 


templated the  patriarch  of  the  dry-goods 
business  as  Humboldt  must  have  exam- 
ined the  first  electrical  eel  he  saw  in 
America.  Monsieur  Guillaume  wore  large 
black-velvet  breeches,  dyed  stockings,  and 
square  shoes  with  silver  buckles.  His 
square-cut  coat,  with  square  skirts  and  a 
square  collar,  enveloped  his  slightly  pro- 
tuberant bodj'^  with  a  greenish  cloth  gar- 
nished with  big  buttons  of  a  metal,  natu- 
rally white,  but  reddened  by  use.  His 
gray  hairs  were  so  exactly  flattened 
down  and  combed  out  over  his  yellow 
skull  that  they  made  it  look  like  a 
plowed  field.  His  little  green  eyes,  as 
piercing  as  a  gimlet,  blazed  under  two 
arches  marked  with  a  slight  red  for  want 
of  eyebrows.  Anxiety  had  traced  on  his 
forehead  horizontal  wrinkles  as  niunerous 
as  the  folds  of  his  coat.  This  sallow  face 
indicated  patience,  commercial  wisdom, 
and  the  species  of  crafty  cupidity  that  is 
called  for  in  business.  At  this  period  one 
saw  less  rarely  than  in  our  day  those  old 
families  keeping  up,  like  precious  tradi- 
tions, the  manners  and  distinctive  cos- 
tumes of  their  professions,  and  going  on 
amid  the  new  civilization  like  those  geo- 
logical remains  found  by  Cuvier  in  the 
quarries. 

The  head  of  the  Guillaume  family  was 
one  of  these  notable  guardians  of  ancient 
customs ;  he  might  be  surprised  regret- 
ting the  "provost  of  the  tradesmen," 
and  never  did  he  speak  of  a  judgment,  of 
the  tribunal  of  commerce  without  calling 
it  the  sentence  of  the  consuls.  The  fii'st 
one  to  rise  in  his  house,  no  doubt  by  virtue 
of  these  customs,  he  calmly  awaited  the 
coming  of  his  three  shop-boys,  in  order  to 
scold  them  if  they  were  late.  These  youth- 
ful disciples  of  Mercury  knew  nothing 
more  fearful  than  tlte  silent  sharpness 
with  which  their  master  scrutinized  their 
faces  and  movements,  on  Monday  morn- 
ing, to  discover  proofs  or  traces  of  their 
escapades.  But  at  this  moment  the  old 
dr^'-goods  dealer  paid  no  attention  to  his 
apprentices ;  he  was  busily  seeking  the 
motive  of  the  solicitude  with  which  that 
young  man  in  silk  stockings  and  mantle 
cast  eyes  alternatelj'  upon  his  sign  and 
upon  the  depths  of  his  shop.     The  light 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


301 


becoming'  brighter,  allowed  a  view  there 
of  the  office,  railed  off,  surrounded  by  old 
g'reen-silk  curtains,  where  were  kept  the 
hug-e  books— mute  oracles  of  the  business. 

The  too  inquisitive  stranger  seemed  to 
hanker  after  this  little  place.  So  great  a 
fondness  for  his  house  appeared  suspicious 
to  a  merchant  who  had  suffered  under 
the  system  of  the  Maximum.  Monsieur 
Guillaume  therefore  supposed,  naturally 
enoug-h,  that  this  sinister  personage  had 
designs  upon  the  cash  of  the  Tennis- 
Playing   Cat. 

After  discreetly  enjoying'  the  mute  duel 
which  was  taking  place  between  his  mas- 
ter and  the  unknown,  the  senior  shop-boy 
ventured  to  step  out  upon  the  sidewalk, 
Avhere  M.  Guillaume  stood  watching  the 
young  man  g-azing'  stealthily  up  at  the 
casements  of  the  third  story ;  he  took  two 
steps  into  the  street,  raised  his  eyes,  and 
thought  he  detected  Mademoiselle  Augus- 
tirie  Guillaume  hurriedly  drawing  back 
out  of  sight.  Displeased  by  the  sharp- 
ness of  his  head  clerk,  the  merchant  gave 
him  a  glance  askance  ;  but  suddenly  the 
mutual  fears  excited  in  the  tradesman's 
heart  and  that  of  his  devoted  clerk  by 
this  stranger's  presence  were  quieted. 

The  unknown  hailed  a  carriage  on  its 
■way  to  a  neighboring'  square,  and  quickly 
jumped  into  it,  affecting  the  utmost  in- 
difference. This  departure  poured  balm 
upon  the  spirits  of  the  other  clerks,  some- 
wluit  disturbed  at  encountering'  once  more 
the  victim  of  their  sport. 

"  Well,  young  men,  -what  are  you  stand- 
ing there  for  with  your  arms  crossed?" 
said  Monsieur  Guillaume  to  his  three  neo- 
phites.  "In  old  tim.es,  when  I  was  with 
Monsieur  Chevrel,  by  this  hour  I  had 
already  examined  more  than  two  whole 
pieces  of  cloth." 

"It  must  have  been  light  earlier  then  ?" 
said  the  second  clerk,  who  had  charge  of 
this  part  of  the  business. 

The  old  merchant  coidd  not  help  srail- 
ijig.  Although  two  of  these  three  young 
men,  intrusted  to  his  care  by  their  fa- 
thers, wealthy  manufacturers  of  Louviers 
and  Sedan,  had  only  to  ask  for  a  hundred 
thousand  francs  to  have  them  oia  the  day 
they  should  be  of  age  to  set  up  for  them- 


selves, Guillaume  thought  it  his  A\xty  to 
hold  them  under  the  ferule  of  an  antique 
despotism  unknown  in  our  days,  to  those 
brilliant  modern  shops,  where  the  clerks 
aspire  to  be  rich  at  thirty  ;  he  made  them 
work  like  neg'roes.  Alone  these  three 
clerks  had  to  accomplish  as  much  as 
would  have  completely  wornout  ten  of 
the  employes  whose  sybaritism  nowadays 
swells  the  columns  of  the  expense  account. 
No  noise  disturbed  the  peace  of  this  sol- 
emn house,  where  the  hinges  seemed  to 
be  always  oiled,  and  where  the  smallest 
bit  of  furniture  had  that  scrupulous  clean- 
liness indicative  of  severe  order  and  econ- 
omy. Often,  the  jolliest  of  the  clerks  had 
amused  himself  with  writing'  on  the  Gruy- 
ere  cheese  which  was  given  them  for 
breakfast,  and  which  they  were  glad  to 
let  well  alone,  the  date  of  its  primitive 
reception. 

This  touch  of  malice  and  a  few  similar 
ones  sometimes  made  the  younger  of 
Guillaume's  two  daughters  smile — the 
pretty  maid  who  had  just  appeared  to 
the  enchanted  .stranger. 

Though  each  of  the  apprentices,  even 
the  oldest  one,  paid  a  good  price  for  his 
board,  he  would  never  have  been  bold 
enough  to  remain  at  his  master's  table  a 
moment  after  dessert  had  been  served. 
When  Madame  Guillaume  spoke  of  mix- 
ing the  salad,  these  poor  young  men 
trembled  in  thinking  with  what  parsi- 
mony her  prudent  hand  had  a  knack  of 
pouring  in  the  oil.  They  must  never  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  pass  a  night  out  of 
the  house  without  giving,  a  long  time  in 
advance,  a  plausible  excuse  for  such  an 
irregularity.  Every  Sunday,  and  in  regu- 
lar rotation,  two  chn-ks  accompanied  the 
Guillaume  family  to  mass  at  Saint-Leu 
and  to  vespers.  Mesdemoiselles  Virginio 
and  Augustine,  modestly  robed  in  calico, 
each  took  a  clerk's  arm  and  walked  on 
ahead,  under  the  scrutinizing  eyes  of 
their  mother,  who  brought  up  the  rear  of 
this  little  domestic  procession  with  her 
husband,  tramed  by  her  to  carry  two 
large  prayer-books  bound  in  black  mo- 
rocco. 

The  second  clerk  had  no  salary. 

As  for  the  one  whom  twelve  years  of 


302 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


perseverance  and  discretion  had  initiated 
into  the  secrets  of  the  house,  he  received 
eight  hundred  francs  as  a  compensation 
for  his  labors.  At  certain  family  festivals 
he  was  .sTutifled  with  a  few  presents,  to 
which  Madame  Guillaume's  dry  and 
wrinkled  hand  alone  gave  value ;  knit 
purses  which  she  took  care  to  stuff  with 
cotton  in  order  to  show  off  their  open- 
work desig-ns,  strongly  made  suspenders, 
or  verj'  heavy  pairs  of  silk  stockings. 
Sometimes,  but  rarely,  this  prime-minister 
was  allowed  to  share  in  the  pleasures  of 
the  family,  either  when  it  made  an  ex- 
cursion into  the  countrj',  or  when,  after 
months  of  waiting,  it  decided  to  use  its 
right,  in  hiring  a  box  at  the  theater,  to 
ask  after  some  play  that  Paris  no  longer 
thought  of.  As  for  the  other  three  clerks, 
the  barrier  of  respect  that  in  old  times 
separated  a  master  dry-goods  dealer  from 
his  apprentices  was  so  strongly  fixed  be- 
tween them  and  the  old  merchant  that  it 
would  have  been  easier  for  them  to  steal 
a  piece  of  cloth  than  to  disturb  this  au- 
gust etiquette. 

Such  reserv^e  may  seem  ridiculous  now- 
adays :  but  these  old  houses  were  schools 
of  manners  and  of  probity.  The  masters 
adopted  their  apprentices.  A  j'oung 
man's  linen  was  looked  after,  mended, 
and  sometimes  renewed  by  the  mistress 
of  the  house.  If  a  clerk  became  ill,  truly 
maternal  care  was  bestowed  upon  him. 
In  case  of  danger,  the  master  lavished 
his  money  to  call  in  the  most  celebrated 
doctors  ;  since  he  felt  responsible  for  m.ore 
than  merely  the  morals  and  knowledge  of 
these  young  men  to  their  parents.  If  one 
of  them,  honorable  in  character,  chanced 
to  fall  in  love,  these  old  merchants  knew 
how  to  appreciate  the  intelligence  which 
they  had  developed ;  and  they  did  not 
hesitate  to  intrust  the  happiness  of  their 
daughter  to  the  man  whom  they  had  long 
intrusted  with  their  fortune. 

Guillaume  was  one  of  these  old-fashioned 
individuals,  and  if  he  had  their  oddities, 
he  had  also  all  their  good  qualities ;  so 
Joseph  Lebas,  his  head  clerk,  an  orphan 
Without  fortune,  was  in  his  mind  the 
future  husband  of  Virginie,  his  older 
daughter. 


But  Joseph  did  not  share  the  sj'mmet- 
rical  thoughts  of  his  master,  who  would 
not  for  the  world  have  married  off  his  sec- 
ond daughter  before  his  first.  The  un- 
fortunate clerk  felt  his  heart  completely 
captivated  by  Mademoiselle  Augustine, 
the  younger  daughter.  In  order  to  jus- 
tify this  passion,  which  had  grown  up  in 
seci'et,  it  is  necessary  to  penetrate  more 
deeply  into  the  precincts  of  the  absolute 
government  that  held  sway  over  the  old 
draper's  house. 

Guillaume  had  two  daughters.  The 
elder.  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  was  quite 
the  picture  of  her  mother.  Madame  Guil- 
laume, the  daughter  of  Monsieur  Chevrel, 
sat  so  bolt  upright  on  the  bench  behind 
her  counter  that  more  than  once  she  had 
heard  people  wager  in  jest  that  she  was 
impaled.  Her  lean  and  long  visage  gave 
evidence  of  excessive  devoutness.  With- 
out charms  or  amiable  manners,  Madame 
Guillaume  habitually  ornamented  her  al- 
most sexagenary  head  with  a  cap  of  an 
invariable  shape,  and  garnished  witli  lap- 
pets like  a  widow's  cap.  All  the  neigh- 
borhood called  her  the  guardian  sister  of 
the  convent.  Her  words  were  few,  and 
her  gestures  had  something  of  the  jerki- 
ness  of  the  Morse  telegraphic  alphabet. 
Her  eye,  as  sharp  as  a  cat's,  seemed  to 
bear  a  grudge  against  everybody  because 
its  owner  was  ugly. 

Mademoiselle  Virginie,  brought  up  like 
her  young  sister  under  their  mother's  des- 
potic laws,  had  attained  the  age  of  twen- 
ty-eight years.  Youth  lessened  the  un- 
comely' look  which  the  likeness  to  her 
mother  sometimes  gave  her  face ;  but  the 
maternal  rigor  had  endowed  her  with  two 
great  qualities  that  might  counterbalance 
everything — she  was  sweet  and  patient. 

Mademoiselle  Augustine,  hardly  eigh- 
teen years  old,  resembled  neither  her 
father  nor  mother.  She  was  one  of 
those  girls  who,  by  the  absence  of  all 
physical  bond  of  union  with  their  parents, 
inspire  a  belief  in  the  old  woman's  say- 
ing: "God  bestows  children."  Augus- 
tine was  small,  or,  to  picture  her  moi'e 
exactly,  delicate  and  pretty.  Graceful 
and  abounding  in  frankness,  a  man  of 
the  world  could   only  have    reproached 


HOUSE    OF    THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


303 


this  charming  creature  with  awkward 
g-estures  or  certain  commonplace  atti- 
tudes, and  occasionally^  with  embarrass- 
ment. Her  silent  and  unmoved  face  gave 
expression  to  the  passing  melancholy  that 
possesses  all  j'oung  ^wooien  too  weak  to 
venture  resistance  to  a  mother's  will. 
Always  modestly  dressed,  the  two  sisters 
could  not  satisfy  their  innate  woman's 
coquetry  except  by  a  luxury  of  neatness, 
which  was  wonderfully  becoming  to  them 
and  put  them  in  harmony  with  those  shin- 
ing counters,  with  those  shelves  where  the 
old  domestic  permitted  not  a  speck  of  dust, 
and  with  the  antique  simplicity  of  evevy- 
thing  to  be  seen  around  them.  Obliged 
b^'  their  way  of  life  to  seek  the  elements 
of  happiness  in  persevering  work,  Augus- 
tine and  Virginie  had  hitherto  given  only 
satisfaction  to  their  mother,  who  private- 
ly congratulated  herself  upon  her  two 
daughters'  perfection  of  character.  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  the  results  of  the  edu- 
cation the^'  had  received.  Brought  up 
for  business,  accustomed  to  hear  only 
wretched,  mercantile  ai'guments  and  cal- 
culations ;  having  studied  only  grammar, 
book-keeping,  a  little  Jewish  and  French 
history,  and  reading  solely  such  authoi'S 
as  were  permitted  by  their  mother,  their 
ideas  had  not  gi'own  to  be  very  extensive. 
They  could  keep  house  perfectly ;  they 
knew  the  prices  of  things ;  they  under- 
stood the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  accu- 
mulating money  ;  they  were  economical, 
and  had  a  great  respect  for  the  qualities 
of  the  merchant.  In  .spite  of  their  father's 
wealth,  they  ^vere  as  skillful  in  mending 
as  in  embroidering.  Often  tlieir  mother 
spoke  about  teaching  them  how  to  cook, 
so  that  they  might  be  able  to  order  a  din- 
ner and  scold  a  cook  with  a  proper  under- 
standing of  the  subject. 

Ignorant  of  the  world's  pleasures  and 
beholding  how  the  exemplaiy  life  of  their 
parents  glided  away,  they  rarely  cast  a 
glance  beyond  the  confines  of  this  ances- 
tral house  wliich  was  the  whole  universe 
to  their  molher.  The  social  gatherings 
occasioned  by  familj-  solemnities  formed 
all  the  future  of  their  earthly  joys. 

When  the  large  drawing-room  in  the 
second    story    was    to    receive    Madame 


Roguin,  who  was  once  a  Mademoiselle 
Chevrel,  fifteen  years  younger  than  her 
cousin,  and  who  wore  diamonds:  tiie  j'oung 
Rabourdin,  second  chief  clerk  in  the  De- 
partment of  Finance ;  M.  Cesar  Birot- 
teau,  the  wealthy  perfumer,  and  his  wife, 
Imown  as  Madame  Cesar ;  M.  Camusot, 
the  richest  dealer  in  silks  of  the  Rue  des 
Bourdonnais,  and  his  father-in-law.  Mon- 
sieur Cardot ;  two  or  three  old  bankers, 
and  a  few  irreproachable  ladies,  the  prep- 
arations necessitated  by  the  way  the 
plate,  the  Dresden  china,  the  wax  candles, 
and  the  glass-ware  were  packed  away 
made  a  diversion  in  the  monotonous  life 
of  these  three  women,  who  went  and 
came  and  bustled  about  as  actively  as 
do  nuns  for  the  reception  of  their  bishop. 
Then,  when  night  found  all  three  worn 
out  with  wiping,  rubbing,  unpacking,  and 
putting  in  place  the  ornaments  of  the  en- 
tertaisment,  the  two  girls  helped  their 
mother  to  go  to  bed*,  and  Madame  Guil- 
laume  said  to  them  : 

"  We  liave  done  nothing  to-day,  my 
children  !  " 

Whenever,  in  these  solemn  parties,  the 
guardian  sister  of  the  convent  allowed 
dancing,  restricting  the  games  of  Boston, 
whist,  and  backgammon  to  her  own  cham- 
ber, this  concession  was  accounted  a  most 
unexpected  felicity,  and  caused  a  happi- 
ness equal  to  that  of  going  to  the  two  or 
three  great  balls  where  Guillaume  took 
his  daughters  in  carnival  time.  Finally, 
once  in  the  year,  the  honest  dry-goods 
merchant  gave  an  entertainment,  on 
which  he  spared  no  expense.  However 
rich  and  elegant  might  be  the  people  in- 
vited, they  were  very  careful  not  to  be 
absent ;  for  the  most  considerable  houses 
in  business  had  recourse  to  the  immense 
credit,  the  wealth,  or  the  great  experience 
of  Monsieur  Guillaume.  But  the  two  > 
daughters  of  this  worthy  tradesman  did 
not  profit  as  much  as  might  have  been 
supposed  from  tlie  lessons  which  the 
world  offers  to  young-  people.  The^-  wore 
at  these  parties — recorded,  moreover,  on 
the  register  of  bills  payable  of  the  house 
— such  sliabby  gowns  that  they  were 
forced  to  blush.  Their  manner  of  danc- 
ing had   nothing    remarkable    about  it. 


304 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


and  the  maternal  supervision  did  not 
allow  them  to  carry  on  a  conversation 
with  th(>ir  partners  otherwise  than  b^' 
"yes"  and  "no."  Then  the  law  of  the 
old  sign  of  the  Tennis-Playing  Cat  com- 
manded them  to  be  in  bed  at  eleven 
o'clock,  the  very  hour  when  balls  and 
entertainments  begin  to  grow  animated. 
Thus  their  pleasures,  in  appearance  con- 
formable enough  to  their  father's  fortune, 
often  became  insipid  from  circumstances 
inherent  in  the  habits  and  principles  of 
the  family. 

As  for  their  ordinaiy  life,  a  single  re- 
mark will  fully  characterize  it.  Madame 
Guillaume  I'equired  that  her  two  daugh- 
ters should  be  dressed  early  in  the  morn- 
ing:, that  they  should  go  do'svnstairs  eveiy 
day  at  the  same  hour,  and  she  subjected 
all  their  doings  to  a  conventual  regu- 
larity. HoM'ever,  Augnstine  had  received 
from  fate  a  soul  lofty  enough  to  ft^l  the 
emptiness  of  such  aif  existence.  At  times 
her  blue  eyes  were  raised  as  if  to  question 
the  depths  of  that  dark  staircase  and  of 
those  damp  stores.  After  fathoming'  this 
cloisteral  silence,  she  seemed  to  listen 
from  afar  to  confused  revelations  of  that 
passionate  life  which  places  a  liigher  value 
upon  sentiments  than  upon  things.  At 
these  moments  a  color  came  into  her  face, 
her  listless  hands  let  the  white  muslin 
fall  on  the  polished  oak  of  the  counter, 
and  soon  her  mother  would  say  to  her, 
in  a  voice  that  remained  always  Sharp, 
even  in  its  sweetest  accents  : 

"  Aug-ustioe  !  wh3',what  are  you  think- 
ing of,  my  dear  ?  " 

Perhaps  "  Hippolyte,  Count  of  Doug- 
las," and  the  "  Count  of  Comminges," 
two  novels  found  by  Augustine  in  the 
cupboard  of  a  cook  recently  discharged 
by  Madame  Guillaume,  contributed  to 
•H  the  development  of  this  j'oung  lady's 
ideas,  for  she  had  secretly  devoured  them 
during  the  long  nights  of  the  preceding 
winter.  Augustine's  expressions  of  vague 
desire,  her  .sweet  voice,  her  jasmine  com- 
plexion, and  her  blue  eyes  had  therefore 
kindled  in  poor  Lebas's  soul  a  love  as  vio- 
lent as  it  was  respectful.  By  a  caprice 
easy  to  understand,  Augustine  felt  not 
the  slightest  liking   for  the   orphan  ;  it 


might  have  been  because  she  did  not 
know  that  he  was  in  love  with  her.  By 
way  of  retaliation,  the  head-clerk's  long 
legs,  auburn  hair,  big  hands,  and  robust 
build  had  awakened  a  secret  admiration 
in  Mademoiselle  Vu^inie,  who,  despite 
her  fifty  thousand  crowns  of  dowry,  was 
not  yet  asked  in  marriage  by  anybody. 
Nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  these 
two  inverted  passions  born  amid  the  si- 
lence of  that  dark  shop  as  violets  flower 
in-  the  depths  of  the  woods.  The  mute 
and  constant  contemplation  that  united 
these  young  peoples'  eyes  b^'  their  urgent 
need  of  distraction  in  the  midst  of  plod- 
ding labor  and  a  religious  peace,  must 
sooner  or  later  have  excited  feelings  of 
love.  The  habit  of  seeing  a  face  makes 
one  discover  in  it  insensibly  the  qualities 
of  the  soul,  and  ends  hy  effacing  its 
defects. 

"At  the  rate  this  man  is  going  on,  it 
will  not  be  long  before  our  girls  have  to 
get  down  on  their  knees  to  beg  for  a 
suitor,"  said  Monsieur  Guillaume  to  him- 
self on  reading  the  first  decree  by  which 
Napoleon  anticipated  on  the  classes  of 
conscripts. 

From  that  day,  in  despair  at  seeing  his 
elder  daughter  fade  away,  the  old  mer- 
chant called  to  mind  his  having  married 
Mademoiselle  Chevrel  in  very  nearlj'  such 
a  situation  as  Joseph  Lebas  and  Virginie 
were  in.  What  a  good  thing  it  would  be 
to  marry  his  daughter  and  to  pay  off  a 
sacred  debt  \>y  showing  unto  an  orphan 
the  kindness  which  he  had  himself  re- 
ceived in  old  times  from  his  predecessor 
under  the  same  circumstances  !  Thirtj'- 
tliree  years  old,  Joseph  Lebas  thought  of 
the  obstacles  that  a  difference  of  fifteen 
years  put  between  Augustine  and  him- 
self. Too  clear-sighted,  moreover,  not  to 
guess  at  Monsieur  Guillaume's  plans,  he 
was  well  enough  acquainted  with  his  in- 
exorable principles  to  know  that  never 
would  the  younger  daughter  be  married 
before  the  elder  one.  The  poor  clerk, 
whose  heart  was  as  excellent  as  his  legs 
were  long  and  his  chest  was  broad,  suf- 
fered therefore  in  silence. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  this 
little  republic  which,  in  the  heart  of  the 


.M.    GUILLAUMK 
The  typical  merchaut. 


Balzac,  Volume  One. 


The  House  of  the  Tennis  Flavwo  Cat. 


HOUSE    OF     THE     TE:SNIS-P  LAYING     CAT. 


305 


Rue  Saint  Denis,  resembled  somewhat  a 
branch  of  the  Trappist  Order. 

But  to  give  an  exact  account  of  external 
events  as  well  as  of  emotions,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  go  back  to  a  few  months  'before 
the  scene  with  which  this  story  begins. 
At  the  hour  of  twilight,  a  young  man, 
passing  before  the  dark  shop  of  the  Ten- 
nis-Playing Cat,  stopped  a  moment  to 
contemplate  a  picture  which  would  have 
fascinated  all  the  painters  of  the  world. 
The  store,  not  being  yet  lighted,  formed 
a  black  foreground,  at  the  back  of  which 
could  be  seen  the  merchant's  dining-room. 
An  astral  lamp  shed  there  that  yellow 
light  which  imparts  such  a  charm  to  the 
paintings  of  the  Dutch  school.  The  white 
linen,  the  silver  and  glass-ware,  formed 
brilliant  accessories  that  were  further 
embellished  by  the  sharp  contrasts  be- 
tween light  and  shadow.  The  face  of 
the  father  of  the  family  and  that  of  his 
wife,  tlie  visages  of  the  clerks  and  Augus- 
tine's regular  features,  a  stout,  chubby- 
cheeked  girl  standing  two  steps  away 
from  her,  composed  such  a  curious  group; 
these  heads  were  so  original,  and  each 
personage  had  so  open  an  expression ;  the 
peace,  the  quiet,  and  the  modest  life  of 
this  family  were  so  plainly  evident  that 
an  artist  accustomed  to  delineating  nature 
could  not  but  feel  desperately  anxious  to 
reproduce  this  fortuitous  scene.  The 
passer  was  a  .young  painter  who  had  won 
the  great  prize  for  painting,  seven  years 
before.  He  was  just  home  from  Rome. 
His  soul,  nurtured  on  poetry,  his  eyes, 
sated  with  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo, 
thirsted  for  simple  nature  after  a  long 
residence  in  the  pompous  country  where 
art  spreads  its  magnificence  on  all  sides. 
False  or  just,  this  was  his  personal  feel- 
ing. Long  given  up  to  the  ardor  of  Ital- 
ian passions,  his  heart  demanded  one  of 
those  modest  and  serene  maids  whom,  un- 
fortunately, he  had  only  been  able  to  find 
in  paintings  at  Rome.  From  tlie  enthusi- 
asm of  soul  inspired  hy  the  artless  picture 
which  he  beheld,  he  passed  naturally  to  a 
profound  admiration  for  its  principal 
figure.  Augustine  seemed  pensive  and 
did  not  eat.  The  lamp  was  so  arranged 
that  the  light  fell  full  upon  her  face  ;  her 


form  appeared  to  move  in  a  circle  of  fire 
which  set  off  more  vividlj'  the  contours  of 
her  head  and  illuminated  it  in  an  almost 
supernatural  manner.  The  artist  invol- 
untarily compared  her  to  an  exiled  angel 
recalling  heaven  to  her  mind.  An  almost 
unknown  sensation,  a  limpid  and  bubbling 
love,  overflowed  his  heart. 

After  standing  a  moment  as  if  crushed 
by  the  weight  of  his  thonghts,  he  tore 
himself  away  from  his  happiness,  went 
home,  could  not  eat,  and  could  not  sleep. 

On  the  next  day  he  entered  his  studio 
not  to  leave  it  imtil  he  had  deposited  on 
canvas  the  witchery  of  this  scene  which 
bad  quite  taken  possession  of  him.  His 
happiness  was  incomplete  as  long  as  he 
did  not  own  a  portrait  of  his  idol.  He 
passed  several  times  before  the  house  of 
the  Tennis- Playing  Cat;  he  ventured 
even  to  enter  once  or  twice  on  a  pretended 
errand  of  purchase,  in  order  to  have  a 
nearer  view  of  the  fascinating  creature 
sheltered  under  Madame  Guillaume's 
wing.  During  eight  whole  months,  ab- 
sorbed by  his  love  and  his  brushes,  he 
remained  invisible  to  his  most  intimate 
friends,  forgetting  society,  books,  the 
theater,  music,  and  his  dearest  habits. 

One  morning  Girodet,  disregarding  the 
servants'  instructions,  which  artists  \m- 
derstand  and  manage  to  elude,  forced  his 
way  in  and  startled  him  witli  this  ques- 
tion :  "  Wliat  are  you  going  to  put  in 
the  Salon?" 

The  artist  seized  his  friend's  hand,  led 
liim  into  his  studio,  uncovered  a  small 
easel-picture  and  a  poi^trait.  After  a 
slow  and  eager  contemplation  of  the  two 
mastei-pieces,  Girodet  fell  on  his  comrade's 
neck  and  embraced  him  without  finding 
a  word  to  say.  His  emotions  could  only 
be  expressed  as  he  felt  them,  from  soul  to 
soul. 

"Are  you  in  love  ?  "  asked  Girodet. 

Both  of  them  knew  that  the  finest  por- 
traits of  Titian,  Raphael,  and  Leonardo 
da  Vinci  are  due  to  those  inspired  feelings 
which,  under  different  conditions,  give 
rise  indeed  to  all  masterpieces.  The  only 
repl3'  the  j^oung  artist  made  was  to  bow 
his  head. 

'■  You  are  a  happy  man  to  be  able  to 


30G 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY 


fall  in  love  here,  just  after  coming-  home 
from  Italy  !  I  don't  advise  you  to  exhibit 
such  works  in  the  Salon,"  added  the  great 
painter.  "  You  see  these  two  pictures 
would  not  be  felt  there.  These  true  col- 
ors, this  prodigious  amount  of  labor,  can- 
not 3'et  be  appreciated ;  the  iiublic  is  no 
longer  accustomed  to  such  depth.  The 
])ictures  w^e  paint,  my  good  friend,  are 
mei'e  daubs,  mere  screens.  Well,  let  us 
rather  make  verses  and  translate  the 
classics  !  Tliere  is  more  glorj'^  to  be  looked 
for  from  that  than  from  our  unluckj'^ 
canvases." 

Despite  this  charitable  advice,  the  two 
pictures  wore  exhibited.  The  interior 
created  a  revolution  in  painting.  It 
gave  birth  to  those  genre  pictures,  the 
prodigious  number  of  which  in  all  our 
exhibitions  might  lead  one  to  believe  that 
they  are  turned  out  by  some  purely  me- 
chanical processes.  As  for  the  portrait, 
there  are  few  artists  who  do  not  retain 
•  some  recollection  of  that  living  canvas 
which  became  as  much  of  a  favorite  with 
the  public,  sometimes  judging  justly  in 
a  body,  as  with  Girodet  himself.  The 
two  pictures  were  surrounded  by  an 
immense  crowd.  Women  said  it  was  as 
much  as  your  life  was  worth  to  get  near 
them.  Speculators  and  great  noblemen 
olfered  to  cover  the  two  paintings  with 
double  Napoleons ;  the  artist  obstinately 
refused  to  sell  them,  and  refused  to  make 
any  copies  of  them.  He  was  offered  an 
enormous  amount  for  the  pei'mission  to 
engrave  them ;  the  dealers  were  no  more 
successful  than  the  amateurs  had  been. 

Although  this  affair  created  a  sensa- 
tion, it  was  not  of  a  nature  to  make  its 
way  into  the  little  desert  of  the  Rue  Saint 
Denis  ;  nevertheless,  when  calling  on  Ma- 
dame Guillaume,  the  notary's  wife  spoke 
of  the  exhibition  before  Augustine,  whom 
she  was  vei-y  fond  of,  and  explained  to  her 
all  about  it.  Madame  Roguin's  tattle 
naturally  inspired  in  Augustine  a  desire 
to  see  the  pictures  and  the  hardihood  to 
secretl}'-  ask  her  cousin  to  accompany  her 
to  the  Louvi'e.*    The  cousin  succeeded  in 

*  Where  trie  annual  exhibitions  were  then  heUi, 
the  Pnlais  il'Indiistre  being  of  very  recent  con- 
st ruction. — Editor. 


the  negotiations  which  she  opened  with 
Madame  Guillaume  for  obtaining  permis- 
sion to  tear  her  young  cousin  away  from 
her  dull  labors  during  about  two  hours. 
The  gitl  therefore  penetrated  through  the 
crowd  to  the  portrait  that  had  won  the 
prize.  A  shiver  made  her  tremble  like  a 
birch-leaf  when  she  recognized  herself. 
She  felt  afraid,  and  looked  around  her  to 
get  back  to  Madame  Roguin,  from  whom 
she  had  been  separated  by  a  press  of 
people. 

Just  at  this  moment  her  frightened  eyes 
fell  upon  the  blazing  face  of  the  young 
painter.  She  remembered  all  at  once  the 
looks  of  a  passer-by  whom  she  had  often 
noticed  with  some  curiosity,  supposing 
that  it  was  a  new  neighbor. 

"You  see  what  love  has  inspired  me  to 
do  ! "  said  the  artist  in  the  timid  creat- 
ure's ear ;  and  she  was  quitp  terrified  by 
his  words. 

She  mustered  up  a  supernatural  courage 
to  cleave  her  way  through  the  throng  and 
join  her  cousin,  who  was  still  busily  strug- 
g-lingwith  the  mass  of  humanity  that  pre- 
vented her  reaching  the  picture. 

"You  Avill  be  crushed  to  death,"  ex- 
claimed Augustine  ;  "  let  us  go  !  "      . 

But  there  are  certain  times  at  the  Salon 
when  two  women  are  not  always  free  to 
direct  their  steps  in  the  galleries.  Made- 
moiselle Guillaume  and  her  cousin  were 
pushed  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the  second 
picture  in  consequence  of  the  erratic  course 
that  the  crowd  compelled  them  to  take. 
Chance  willed  that  they  should  have  to- 
gether the  opportunity  to  approach  the 
canvas  which  fashion,  agreeing  this  time 
with  talent,  made  famous. 

The  exclamation  of  surprise  uttered  by 
the  notary's  wife  was  lost  in  the  commo- 
tion and  buzzing  of  the  multitude.  Au- 
gustine shed  tears  involuntarily  at  the 
sight  of  this  wonderful  scene,  and,  in- 
spired by  an  almost  inexplicable  feeling, 
she  laid  her  finger  upon  her  lips  on  per- 
ceiving close  at  hand  the  young  artist's 
rapturous  face.  The  unknown  lesponded 
by  a  nod  of  his  head,  and  pointed  out 
Madame  Roguin  as  the  disturber  of  their 
happiness,  in  order  to  show  Augustine 
that   she   was  understood.     This   panto- 


HOUSE    OF    THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


307 


mime  was  like  a  firebrand  to  the  poor  girl, 
who  thought  herself  criminally  \\Tong 
when  she  imagined  that  a  sort  of  agree- 
ment had  JLisfc  been  made  between  herself 
and  the  artist.  The  stifling  heat,  the 
sight  of  so  many  brilliant  toilets,  and 
Augustine's  amazement  at  the  bright 
colors,  the  multitude  of  living  and  painted 
faces,  the  profusion  of  gilt  frames,  made 
her  experience  a  sort  of  intoxication  that 
redoubled  her  fears.  She  would,  perhaps, 
have  fainted  away  if,  in  spite  of  the  chaos 
of  her  sensations,  there  had  not  sprung 
up  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart  an  unknown 
joy  which  made  her  whole  being  alive. 
Nevertheless,  she  supposed  herself  under 
the  sway  of  that  demon  whose  terrible 
snares  had  been  predicted  to  her  by  the 
thundering  words  of  preachers.  That 
moment  was  to  her  a  moment  of  mental 
distraction.  She  saw  this  young  man, 
radiant  with  happiness  and  love,  follow 
her  to  her  cousin's  carriage. 

Preyed  ujion  by  an  entirely  new  excite- 
ment, by  an  intoxication  that  gave  her 
over  to  nature,  Augustine  listened  to  the 
eloquent  voice  of  her  heart,  and  glanced 
several  times  at  the  young  painter,  be- 
traying the  trouble  that  possessed  her. 
Never  had  the  glow  of  her  cheeks  formed 
a  sharper  contrast  to  the  whiteness  of 
her  skin.  The  artist  then  perceived  her 
beauty  in  its  full  flower,  her  modesty  in 
all  its  glory.  Augustine  felt  a  species  of 
joy,  mingled  with  terror,  as  she  thought 
that  her  presence  caused  the  felicity  of 
the  man  whose  name  was  on  all  lips,  and 
whose  talent  gave  immortality  to  fleeting 
images. 

She  was  loved  !  It  was  impossible  for 
her  to  doubt  it. 

When  she  could  no  longer  see  the  artist, 
those  simple  words  still  soimded  within 
her  heart :  "  You  see  what  love .  has  in- 
spired me  to  do  ! "  and  its  palpitations, 
growing  stronger,  seemed  pain  to  her, 
while  her  more  ardent  blood  awakened 
powers  unknown  in  her  being.  She  pre- 
tended to  have  a  severe  headache  in  order 
to  escape  answering  her  cousin's  questions 
about  the  pictures  ;  but  on  reaching  home, 
Madame  Koguin  could  not  refrain  from 
spealdng  to  Madame   Guillaume  of  the 


celebrity  obtained  by  the  Tennis-Playing 
Cat,  and  Augustine  trembled  all  over  at 
hearing  her  mother  say  that  she  would 
go  to  the  Salon  to  see  her  house  then;. 
The  young  woman  again  insisted  that 
she  was  indisposed,  and  obtained  permis- 
sion to  leave  the  room. 

"That  is  what  you  get  running  after 
all  these  sights,"  exclaimed  Monsieur 
GuUlaume ;  "headaches!  Is  it  then  so 
very  amusing  to  see  in  a  painting  what 
you  can  look  at  any  day  in  our  street  ? 
Don't  talk  to  me  about  artists ;  they  are 
like  your  authors,  they  starve  to  death  I 
What  in  creation  do  they  want  to  take 
my  house  for  and  slander  it  in  their  pict- 
ures ? " 

"  That  may  make  us  sell  a  few  more 
yards  of  cloth,"  said  Joseph  Lebas. 

This  remark  did  not  prevent  the  arts 
and  thought  from  being  once  more  con- 
demned in  the  tribunal  of  commerce. 

As  may  be  well  imagined,  tliese  dis- 
courses did  not  give  much  hope  to  Augus- 
tine, who  was  absorbed  during  the  night 
\>y  her  first  meditation  on  love.  The 
events  of  the  daj'  were  like  a  dream, 
which  it  pleased  her  to  reproduce  in 
thought.  She  was  initiated  into  the 
feai's,  hopes,  remorse ;  into  all  the  un- 
dulations of  sentiment  that  ever  beguile 
so  simple  and  timid  a  heart  as  was  hers. 

What  a  void  she  recognized  in  this  dark 
house,  and  what  a  treasure  she  found  in 
her  own  soul !  To  be  the  wife  of  a  man 
of  talent,  and  to  shai'e  in  his  glory  I 
What  ravages  such  an  idea  must  have 
made  in  the  heart  of  a  child  brought  up 
in  the  bosom  of  this  family  !  What  hope 
must  it  not  have  awakened  in  a  young 
person  who,  hitherto  bred  on  vulgar  prin- 
ciples, had  yet  longed  for  a  life  of  elegance  ! 
A  ray  of  sunlight  had  fallen  into  this 
prison.  Augustine  was  all  at  once  in 
love.  So  many  different  feelings  were 
awakened  in  her  at  the  same  time  that 
she  succumbed  without  stopping  to  cal- 
culate. At  the  age  of  eighteen,  does  not 
love  interpose  its  prism  between  the  world 
and  the  eyes  of  a  young  woman  ?  Inca- 
pable of  divining  the  rude  shocks  result- 
ing from  the  alliance  of  a  loving  woman 
with  a  man  of  imagination,  she  thought 


308 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


herself  called  upon  to  make  this  man's 
happiness,  without  taking  note  of  a.ny 
incompatibility  between  herself  and  him. 
To  her  the  present  was  the  whole  future. 

When  her  father  and  mother  came  home 
next  daj'  from  the  Salon,  their  glum  faces 
indicated  disappointment.  First,  the  two 
pictures  had  been  withdrawn  by  the 
,  painter;  then,  Madame  Guillaume  had 
lost  her  cashmere  .shawl.  To  learn  that 
the  pictures  had  disappeared  immediately 
after  her  visit  to  the  Salon,  was  for  Au- 
gustine the  revelation  of  a  delicacy  of  feel- 
ing which  women  know  how  to  appreciate, 
even  instinctively. 

That  morning  when,  on  his  waj^  home 
from  a  ball,  Theodore  de  Sommervieux — 
such  was  the  name  that  fame  had  wafted 
into  Augustine's  heart — was  sprinkled  b^^ 
the  clerks  of  the  Tennis-Playing  C'ai,while 
he  waited  for  the  appearance  of  his  artless 
beloved,  who  certainly  did  not  know  he 
was  there,  the  two  lovers  saw  one  an- 
other for  the  fourth  time  onlj^  since  the 
scene  in  the  Salon.  The  obstacles  opposed 
by  the  regulations  of  the  Guillaume  house- 
hold to  the  artist's  fiery  character  im- 
parted an  easily  imagined  \aolence  to  his 
passion  for  Augustine.  How  could  one 
come  near  a  joung  lady  seated  at  a 
counter  between  two  such  women  as 
Mademoiselle  Vii-ginie  and  Madame  Guil- 
laume ?  How  was  a  correspondence  to 
be  carried  on  with  her  when  her  mother 
never  left  her  ? 

Skillful,  as  all  lovers  are,  in  contriving 
misfortunes  for  himself,  Theodore  imag- 
ined a  rival  in  one  of  the  clerks,  and  sup- 
posed the  others  to  act  in  the  interests  of 
his  rival.  If  he  should  escape  so  many 
•  Arguses,  he  saw  himself  coming  to  grief 
under  the  sharp  eyes  of  the  old  merchant 
or  of  Madame  Guillaume.  Everywhere 
obstacles,  everywhere  despair  !  The  very 
A'iolence  of  his  passion  prevented  the  j'oung 
painter  from  hitting  upon  those  ingenious 
expedients  which,  in  prisoners  as  in  lovers, 
seem  to  be  the  last  effort  of  reason  excited 
by  a  savage  longing  for  libert}^  or  by  the 
fii'e  of  love. 

Theodore,  therefore,  roamed  about  that 
pa  rt  of  town  with  the  restlessness  of  a  mad- 
man— as  if  motion  could  suggest  artifices 


to  him.  After  thoroughly  racking  his 
brains,  he  managed  to  think  of  bribing 
the  chubby-cheeked  servant-girl.  So  a 
few  letters  were  exchanged,  at  long  in- 
tervals, during  the  fortnight  following 
the  unlucky  morning  when  M.  Guillaume 
and  Theodoi-e  had  had  such  a  good  A'iew 
of  one  another.  By  this  time  the  two 
young  people  had  agreed  to  see  each  other 
at  a  certain  hour  of  the  daj^  and  on  Sun- 
day, at  Saint  Leu,  during  mass  and 
vespers.  Augustine  had  sent  her  dear 
Theodore  a  list  of  the  relatives  and  friends 
of  the  family,  and  the  J'oung  painter  en- 
deavored to  get  access  to  them,  in  order, 
if  it  were  possible,  to  interest  in  his  love 
affair  one  of  those  souls  so  wrapped  up  in 
money  and  business,  that  a  true  passion 
must  have  seemed  to  them  a  most  mon- 
strous and  unheard-of  soi^t  of  speculation. 

Nothing,  however,  was  changed  in  the 
habits  of  the  Tennis-Playing  Cat.  If 
Augustine  was  absent-minded,  if,  con- 
trary to  all  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the 
domestic  charter,  she  went  upstairs  to 
her  room  to  make  signals  with  a  pot  of 
flowers ;  if  she  sighed,  if  she  grew  pensive, 
nobody,  not  even  her. mother,  noticed  it. 
This  circumstance  ^vill  cause  some  sur- 
prise to  those  who  have  understood  the 
spirit  of  tills  house,  where  a  thought 
tinged  with  poetry  must  have  produced 
such  a  contrast  to  the  persons  and  things; 
where  no  one  was  allowed  a  gesture  or  a 
glance  without  its  being  seen  and  ana- 
lyzed . 

Nothing,  however,  could  have  been 
more  natural.  The  quiet  vessel  sailing 
the  stormy  ocean  of  the  Parisian  market, 
under  the  flag  of  the  Tennis-Playing  Cat, 
was  just  then  the  prey  of  one  of  those 
tempests  which  might  be  called  equi- 
noctial in  consequence  of  their  periodical 
recurrence.  During  a  foi'tnight,  the  five 
men  of  the  crew%  Madame  Guillaume,  and 
Mademoiselle  Virginie  applied  themselves 
to  that  arduous  undertaking  known  as 
taking  account  of  stock.  All  the  bales  of 
merchandise  were  moved  about,  and  the 
number  of  yards  in  each  piece  was  meas- 
ured to  ascertain  preciselj'  the  value  of 
what  was  left.  The  tag  appended  to  the 
package  was  carefully  examined   to   see 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


309 


when  the  g'oods  had  been  boug-ht .  A  new 
price  was  fixed  on  them. 

Always  bustling  around,  his  yardstick 
in  his  hand,  his  pen  over  his  ear,  M.  Guil- 
laume  was  lil\e  a  captain  commanding-  the 
working  of  his  ship.*  His  shrill  voice, 
passing  throug'h  a  speaking-tube  to  ques- 
tion the  deep  hatchways  of  the  lower 
warehouse,  shouted  out  those  barbarous 
commercial  expressions  which  can  only  be 
reproduced  by  enigmas  :  "  How  much  of 
H-N-Z  ?— Sold  out.— What  is  left  of  Q-X  ? 
— Two  yards. — What  price  ? — Five-flve- 
three.— Put  all  of  J-J,  all  of  M-P.  and  the 
rest  of  V-D-0  at  three  A."  A  thousand 
other  phrases  quite  as  intelligible  were 
roared  around  the  counters  like  verses  of 
modern  poetr\^  which  romanticists  quote 
to  keep  up  their  enthusiasm  for  one  of 
their  poets.  In  the  evening,  Guillaume, 
closeted  with  his  clerk  and  his  wife,  bal- 
anced up  the  accounts,  carried  forward 
the  balances,  dunned  the  debtors  in 
arrears,  and  made  out  bills.  All  three 
were  busy  with  that  immense  labor,  the 
result  of  which  filled  but  a  square  piece  of 
foolscap  paper,  and  proved  to  the  liouse 
of  Guillaume  that  there  was  so  much  in 
money,  so  much  in  merchandise,  so  much 
in  drafts  and  notes  ;  that  it  did  not  o\s-e  a 
sou ;  that  there  were  debts  due  it  of  one 
hundred  or  two  hundred  thousand  francs ; 
that  the  capital  had  been  increased  ;  that 
the  farms,  houses,  and  rents  were  to  be 
rounded  out,  repaired,  or  doubled. 

From  all  this  resulted  the  necessity  of 
beginning  again  vnth  more  ardor  than 
ever  to  accumulate  more  money,  without 
its  ever  occurring  to  these  plodding  ants 
to  ask  themselves  :   "What  is  the  use  ?  " 

Thanks  to  this  annual  turmoil,  the  fort- 
unate Augustine  escaped  investigation 
from  hei"  Arguses. 

At  last,  one  Saturday  evening,  the  tak- 
ing account  of  stock  was  finished.  The 
figures  of  the  total  assets  showed  ciphers 
enough  for  Guillaume  on  this  occasion  to 
relax  the  strict  rule  which,  the  whole  year 
through,  prevailed  at  dessert.  The  shrewd 
dry -goods  dealer  rubbed  his  hands  and 


*  See  Meissonier's  portrait  of  M.  Guillaume. — 
Editor. 


allowed  his  clerks  to  remain  at  the  table. 
Each  man  of  the  crew  had  scarcely  come 
to  the  end  of  his  small  glass  of  home-made 
liquor  when  the  rumbling  of  a  carriage 
was  heard.  The  family  was  going  to  see 
"  Cinderella  "  at  the  Varietes  Theatre, 
while  the  two  youngest  clerks  received 
each  six-francs  and  permission  to  go 
where  he  pleased,  provided  he  should  be 
in  the  house  by  midnight. 

In  spite  of  this  dissipation,  on  Sunday 
morning  the  old  merchant  shaved  himself 
at  six  o'clock,  put  on  his  chestnut  coat, 
the  resplendent  color  of  which  alwa^'s 
caused  him  the  same  satisfaction,  and 
attached  the  gold  buckles  to  his  ample 
silk  small-clothes ;  then,  toward  seven 
o'clock,  when  all  was  still  asleep  within 
the  house,  he  made  liis  way  to  the  little 
room  opening-  out  of  his  store,  on  the  first 
story.  It  WHS  lig'lited  by  a  window,  with 
thick  iron  bars  that  gave  upon  a  small 
square  courtyard  so  shut  in  by  black 
walls  that  it  was  very  like  a  well.  The 
old  man  of  business  himself  threw  open 
these  sheet-iron  shutters  that  he  knew  so 
well,  and  raised  the  half  of  the  -window 
by  sliding  it  up.  The  icy  air  of  the  yard 
came  in  and  cooled  the  hot  atmosphere  of 
the  I'oom,  which  exhaled  the  odor  peculiar 
to  ofl&ces.  The  tradesman  stood  there, 
his  hand  resting  upon  ^he  soded  arm  of  a 
cane-seat  and  leather-covered  chair,  quite 
faded  from  its  primitive  color,  and  he 
seemed  to  hesitate  about  sitting  down. 
He  looked  with  some  emotion  art  the 
dbuble  desk,  where  his  wife's  place  was 
arranged  opposite  his  o-wn  by  means  of  a 
small  arcade  made  in  the  wall.  He  gazed 
at  the  numbered  boxes,  the  string,  the 
tools,  the  stamps  for  marking  goods,  the 
cash-box — objects  of  immemorial  origin — 
and  imagined  he  saw  himself  once  more 
before  the  called-back  shade  of  Monsieur 
Chevrel.  He  brought  out  the  same  stool 
on  which  in  days  of  yore  he  had  sat  in 
his  dead  master's  presence.  This  black- 
leather  stool,  from  which  the  hair  had 
long  been  slipping  out  at  the  comers 
without  getting-  lost,  his  trembling  hand 
set  at  the  very  place  where  his  predeces- 
sor had  put  it ;  then,  with  an  agitation 
difiicult   to  describe,  he  pulled  the  bell- 


310 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


rope  that  led  to  the  head  of  Joseph  Le- 
bas's  bed.  When  this  decisive  blow  had 
been  struck,  the  old  man,  finding  these 
memories  no  doubt  too  oppressive,  took 
up  three  or  four  bills  of  exchange  that 
had  been  presented  him — and  he  looked 
at  them  without  seeing-  them — when  Jo- 
seph Lebas  suddenly  appeared. 

"Sit  down  there,"'  said  Guillaume  to 
him,  pointing  toward  the  stool.  As  the 
old  dry-goods  dealer  had  never  made  his 
clerk  take  a  seat  before  him,  Joseph  Le- 
bas started. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  these  drafts  ?  " 
asked  Guillaume. 

"  They  will  not  be  paid." 

"How  so?" 

"Why,  I  heard  day  before  yesterday 
that  Etienne  &  Co.  were  paying  out 
gold." 

"Oh  !  oh  !  "  exclaimed  the  tradesman  ; 
"they  must  be  very  sick  to  show  their 
bile.  Let  us  talk  of  something  else. 
Joseph,  our  inventoi-y  is  finished." 

"  Yes,  sir ;  and  the  dividend  is  one  of 
the  finest  you  have  had." 

"Don't  use  those  new  words.  You 
must  say  'proceeds,'  Joseph.  Do  you 
know,  my  boy,  that  we  ai'e  indebted  to 
you  a  bit  for  these  results  ?  And  I  don't 
want  that  you  should  be  working  on  a 
salary  any'  longer.  Madame  Guillaume 
has  suggested  to  me  the  idea  of  offering 
you  an  interest  in  the  business.  Now, 
Joseph,  'Guillaume  &  Lebas' — wouldn't 
that  be  a  fine  name  for  the  firm?  We 
might  add,  also, '  and  Company,'  to  round 
out  the  signatui'e." 

The  tears  came  into  Joseph  Lebas's  eyes, 
and  he  strove  to  conceal  them. 

"Ah,  Monsieur  Guillaume!  how  have 
I  deserved  such  kindness  ?  I  only  do  my 
duty.  It  was  so  much  for  j-outo  take  any 
interest  in  a  poor  orph — ." 

He  brushed  the  cuff  of  his  left  sleeve 
with  his  right  sleeve,  and  dared  not  look 
at  the  old  man,  who  smiled  as  he  thought 
that  this  modest  young  man  no  doubt 
needed,  like  himself  in  old  times,  to  be 
encouraged  to  make  the  explanation  com- 
plete. 

"  However,"  resumed  Virginie's father, 
"you  don't  deserve  this  favor  very  much. 


Joseph.  You  don't  put  as  much  con- 
fidence in  me  as  I  do  in  you."  (The  clerk 
suddenly  raised  his  head.)  "  You  hav(; 
the  secret  of  the  cash-box.  For  two  years 
I  have  told  you  about  almost  all  my  affairs. 
I  have  let  you  travel  to  the  factories ;  and 
so  far  as  you  are  concerned  I  have  nothing 
to  reproach  myself  with.  But  you —  You 
have  a  liking  for  some  one,  and  you 
haven't  breathed  a  single  word  to  me 
about  it."  (Joseph  Lebas  blushed.)  "Ah! 
ah!  "  exclaimed  Guillaume,  "you  thought 
you  could  hoodwink  an  old  fox  like  me, 
did  you  ?  Yet  you  saw  me  guess  the 
Lecoq  failure ! " 

"  What,  monsieur,"  rejoined  Joseph  Le- 
bas, looking  at  his  master  as  attentively 
as  his  master  looked  at  him — "what,  do 
you  know  whom  I  love  ?  " 

"  I  know  all  about  it,  you  scapegrace," 
said  the  respectable  and  sly  tradesman, 
pinching  the  tip  of  his  ear ;  "  and  I  for- 
give .you.  I  did  just  the  same  thing  my- 
self.'"' 

"  And  you  will  let  me  have  her?  " 

"Yes,  with  fifty  thousand  crowns,  and 
I  will  leave  you  as  much  more ;  and  we 
will  start  on  a  new  account,  with  a  new- 
name  for  the  firm.  We  will  make  things 
more  lively,  my  boy  I  "  cried  the  old  shop- 
keeper, standing  up  and  throwing  his  arms 
about.  "  See  here,  my  son-in-law,  there 
is  nothing  like  business.  The  people  who 
ask  what  pleasure  there  is  in  it  are  fools. 
To  have  a  keen  scent  for  business ;  to 
know  how  to  stand  at  the  head  of  the 
market;  to  wait  anxiously,  as  in  gam- 
bling, to  see  whether  Etienne  &  Co.  are 
going  to  fail ;  to  behold  a  whole  regiment 
of  the  Imperial  Guard  march  by  dressed 
in  your  cloth;  to  give  your  neighbor  a 
whack,  fairly  and  squarely,  of  course  ; 
to  manufacture  more  cheaply  than  others 
can ;  to  follow  up  some  business  project 
that  begins  small,  grows,  staggers,  and 
succeeds  ;  to  be  acquainted,  like  the  chief 
of  police,  with  all  the  resources  of  busi- 
ness houses,  so  as  not  to  go  off  on  the 
wrong  track  ;  to  stand  firm  amid  wrecks  : 
to  have  friends  hy  correspondence  in  all 
the  manufacturing  cities — is  not  all  that 
a  perpetual  game,  Joseph  ?  Why,  that 
is  life  itself  !     I  shall  die  in  the  traces,  as 


HOUSE    OF     THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


311 


old  Chevrel  did,  and  I  shall  bo  all  the 
better  for  it." 

In  tlic  heat  of  his  greatest  improvisa- 
tion, Father  Guillaume  scarcely'  g-lanced 
at  his  clerk,  who  was  weeping-  hot  teai's. 

'•Well,  Joseph,  my  poor  boy,  what  is 
the  matter  with  you  ?  " 

"Ah!  I  love  her  so  much — so  much. 
Monsieur  Guillaume,  that  my  heart  fails 
me,  I  think." 

"Well,  my  boy,"  said  the  affected 
tradesman,  "  you  are  more  fortunate  than 
you  think,  indeed,  for  she  is  in  love  with 
you.  I  am  sure  of  it."  And  he  winked 
with  both  his  little  green  eyes  as  he  looked 
at  his  clerk. 

"  Mademoiselle  Aug-ustme  !  Mademoi- 
selle Augustine  !  "  cried  Joseph  Lebas  in 
Ins  enthusiasm.  He  was  about  to  rush 
out  of  the  room,  when  he  felt  himself 
stopped  by  an  iron  grasp,  and  his  as- 
tounded master  brought  him  back  vigor- 
ously. 

"  What  has  Augustine  to  do  in  this 
matter  ?  "  askted  Guillaume  :  and  his  voice 
ininiediately  made  the  unhappy  Joseph 
Leb-.is's  blood  run  cold. 

"  Isn't  she — the  one — I  love  ?"  answered 
the  stammering  clerk. 

Quite  put  out  by  his  want  of  perspi- 
cacity, Guillaume  sat  doA\Ti  again  and 
buried  his  peaked  head  in  both  his  hands 
to  ponder  on  the  odd  position  he  found 
himself  in.  Abashed  and  in  despair, 
Joseph  Lebas  remained  standing. 

"Joseph,"  resumed  the  merchant  with 
cold  dignity,  "  I  was  speaking  to  you 
about  Virginic.  Love  does  not  come  at 
one's  bidding,  I  know.  I  am  acquainted 
with  your  discretion ;  we  will  forget  all 
about  it.  I  shall  never  let  Augustine 
marry  before  Virginie.  Your  interest  in 
the  business  will  be  ten  per  cent.'" 

The  clerk,  to  whom  love  gave  I  know 
not  what  degi-eo  of  courage  and  eloquence, 
clasped  his  hands,  began  talking,  and 
spoke  to  Guillaume  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  with  so  much  warmth  and  feeling 
tliat  the  situation  changed.  If  it  had  been 
a  question  of  some  business  matter,  the 
old  merchant  would  have  had  fixed  rules 
for  making  up  his  mind  :  but.  buffeted  a 
thousand  leagues  away  from  commerce. 


upon  the  sea  of  sentiment,  and  without  a 
compass,  he  wavered  irresolutely  before 
so  original  an  event,  as  he  said  to  himself. 
Influenced  by  his  natural  kindness,  he  beat 
somewhat  to  windward. 

"  But,  my  gracious,  Joseph,  you  know 
well  enough  that  I  had  my  two  children 
ten  years  apart  !  Mademoiselle  Chevrel 
was  not  exactly  a  beauty,  yet  she  has  no 
reason  to  complain  of  me.  Do  as  I  did, 
then.  Don't  cry  about  it,  anyway;  aren't 
you  foolish  ?  What  is  it  you  want  ?  Per- 
haps it  may  all  be  arranged  :  we  shall 
see.  There  is  always  some  way  of  getting 
out  of  a  fix.  We  men  are  not  always  the 
sentimental  lovers  of  our  wives.  Do  you 
understand  me  ?  Madame  Guillaume  is  a 
very  religious  person,  and —  Well,  dear 
me,  my  ohild.  you  may  give  your  arm  to 
Augustine  this  morning  when  j-ou  go  to 
mass." 

Such  were  the  words  uttered  rather  at 
random  by  Guillaume.  The  permission 
endjng  them  delighted  the  love-smitten 
clerk  ;  he  was  already  thinking  of  one  of 
his  friends  for  Mademoiselle  Virginie  when 
he  left  the  smoky  room,  shaking  the  hand 
of  his  future  father-in-law  and  informing 
him,  with  a  knowing  look,  that  all  would 
be  arrang-ed  for  the  best. 

"  What  will  Madame  Guillaume  think  ?" 
This  idea  troubled  the  honest  merchant 
prodigiously  when  he  was  alone. 

At  breakfast,  Madame  Guillaume  and 
Virginie,  whom  the  tradesman  had  pro- 
visionally left  in  ignorance  of  liis  disap- 
pointment, looked  rather  maliciously  at 
Joseph  Lebas,  who  was  not  a  little  em- 
barrassed. 

The  clerk's  modesty  won  him  the  friend- 
ship of  his  mother-in-law.  The  matron 
became  so  gay  that  she  looked  smilingly 
atM.  Guillaume,  and  allowed  lierself  some 
of  those  little  jokes  of  immemorial  usage 
in  such  simple-minded  families.  She 
raised  the  question  whether  Virginie  and 
Joseph  were  of  the  same  height,  in  order 
to  ask  them  to  stand  back  to  back.  These 
preparatory  fooleries  brought  gloom  to 
the  face  of  the  head  of  the  family,  and  he 
pretended  such  a  love  of  decorum  that 
he  ordered  Augustine  to  take  the  head- 
clerk's  arm  in  going  to  Saint-Leu.     Ma- 


312 


THE    HUM  AX    COMEDY. 


dame  Guillaume,  astonished  by  this  mas- 
culine delicacy,  honored  her  husband  with 
an  approving-  nod  of  her  head.  The  pro- 
cession set  out  from  the  house,  therefore, 
in  an  order  that  could  sugg-est  no  mali- 
cious interpretation  to  the  neighbors. 

"  Don't  you  think.  Mademoiselle  Augus- 
tine," said  the  clerk,  tremblingly,  "that 
the  wife  of  a  merchant  with  a  good  credit, 
such  as  M.  Guillaume  has,  for  example, 
might  amuse  herself  a  little  more  than 
your  mother  does — might  weardiamond.s, 
and  ride  in  her  carriage  ?  For  \ny  part, 
if  I  were  married,  I  should  want  to  have 
all  the  trouble,  and  to  see  my  wife  happy. 
I  would  not  put  her  at  my  counter.  You 
see,  in  the  dry-goods  business,  women  are 
no  longer  as  necessary  as  the}'  used  to  be. 
M.  Guillaume  was  right  in  actiiig  as  he 
has  done,  and  besides  it  was  his  wife's 
taste.  But  if  a  woman  laiows  how  to 
lend  a  hand  at  the  bookkeeping,  the  cor- 
respondence, the  retail  trade,  the  orders, 
and  her  housekeeping,  so  as  not  to  reniain 
idle,  that  is  enough.  At  seven  o'clock, 
when  the  shop  was  closed,  I  should  amuse 
myself ;  I  should  go  to  the  theater  and 
out  into  society.  But  you  are  not  listen- 
ing to  me?" 

"Yes,  indeed.  Monsieur  Joseph.  What 
did  you  say  about  painting  ?  That  is  a 
beautiful  profession." 

"  Yes,  I  am  acquainted  with  a  master 
house-painter.  Monsieur  Lourdois,  and  he 
has  some  mone3\" 

Thus  chatting,  the  family  arrived  at 
Saint  Leu's  Church.  There  Madame 
Guillaume  reasserted  her  rights,  and  put 
Augustine  beside  herself  for  the  first  time. 
Virginie  took  her  place  upon  the  fourth 
chair,  at  the  side  of  Lebas. 

During  the  sermon  all  went  well  between 
Augustine  and  Theodore,  who  was  stand- 
ing behind  a  pillar  and  prajnng  fer\'ently 
to  his  Madonna  ;  but,  at  the  elevation 
of  the  Host,  Madame  Guillaume  noticed 
rather  late  that  her  daughter  Augustine 
was  holding  her  prayer-book  upside  down. 
She  made  ready  to  scold  her  sharply,  when, 
lowering  her  veil,  she  interrupted  her  read- 
ing and  began  to  look  in  the  direction 
where  her  daughter's  eyes  seemed  to  be 
fixed.    With   the  aid  of  her  eye-glasses 


she  saw  the  young  artist,  whose  aristo- 
cratic elegance  indicated  rather  some 
cavalry  captain  out  on  leave  than  any 
tradesman  of  that  quarter  of  the  city. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  ijicture  the  violent 
state  of  mind  that  Madame  Guillaume  fell 
into,  after  flattering  herself  that  her 
daughters  had  been  perfectly  brought 
up,  when  she  recognized  in  Augustme's 
heart  a  clandestine  love,  the  danger  of 
which  was  exaggerated  to  her  by  her 
prudery  and  ignorance.  She  thought  her 
daughter  depraved  to  the  heart's  core. 

"Just  keep  your  book  open  at  the  right 
place,  mademoiselle,"  said  she,  in  a  voice 
low  but  shaking  with  anger. 

She  snatched  the  tell-tale  prayer-book 
away  quickh',  and  gave  it  back  with  the 
letters  right  side  up. 

"  Don't  .you  be  so  unluckj-as  to  set  j-our 
eyes  anywhere  else  than  on  j'our  praj'ers, ' ' 
she  added;  "if  you  do,  3'ou'll  have  to 
settle  with  me.  After  mass  j'our  father 
and  I  will  have  something  to  say  to 
3'ou." 

These  words  were  like  a  clap  of  thunder 
to  poor  Augustine.  She  felt  a  faintness 
come  over  her  ;  but,  divided  between  the 
pain  she  felt  and  her  fear  of  making  a 
scene  in  church,  she  had  the  courage  to 
conceal  her  anguish.  It  was  easy,  how- 
ever, to  divine  the  agitated  state  of  her 
mind  by  seeing  her  prayer-book  tremble 
and  the  tears  drop  on  every  page  as  it 
was  turned.  From  the  fiery  glance  cast 
upon  him  by  Madame  Guillaume,  the  art- 
ist became  aware  of  the  peril  his  love  was 
falling  into,  and  he  quitted  the  church, 
with  rage  in  his  heart,  determined  to  dare 
ever>i:hing. 

"Go  to  3'our  room,  mademoiselle!" 
said  Madame  Guillaume  to  her  daughter 
when  they  reached  home;  "we  will  call 
you;  and  don't  you  venture  to  leave  it." 

The  conference  the  husband  and  the 
wife  had  together  was  so  secret  that 
nothing  of  it  transpired  at  first.  But, 
Virginie,  who  had  encouraged  her  sister 
by  a  thousand  kind  remarks,  pushed  her 
complacence  so  far  as  to  steal  close  up  to 
her  mother's  chamber  door,  behind  which 
the  discussion  was  taking  place,  in  order 
to  overhear  a  few  sentences.    At  the  first 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TEXNIS-PLAYIXG     CAT. 


313 


trip  she  made  from  the  third  to  the  second 
story,  she  heard  her  father  crying  out : 

"Madame,  do  you  want  to  kill  your 
daughter  ?  " 

'•My  poor  child,'"  said  Virg-inie  to  her 
weeping  sister,  ' '  papa  is  standing  up  for 
you !  " 

"And  what  are  they  going  to  do  to 
Theodore?  "  asked  the  innocent  creature. 

The  inquisitive  Virginie  went  down- 
stairs again,  but  this  time  she  remained 
longer;  she  learned  that  Lebas  was  in 
love  with  Augustine. 

It  was  written  that,  on  this  memorable 
da}%  a  liouse  ordinarily  quiet  enough 
should  be  a  veritable  pandemonium. 

M.  Guillaume  drove  Joseph  Lebas  to 
despair  by  confiding  to  him  Augustine's 
love  for  a  stranger.  Lebas,  who  had  in- 
structed his  friend  to  ask  for  the  hand  of 
Mademoiselle  Virginie,  saw  his  hopes  up- 
set. Mademoiselle  Virginie,  overwhelmed 
by  the  knowledge  that  Joseph  had  in 
some  sort  refused  her,  was  attacked  \>y 
a  headache.  The  dissension  appearing  in 
the  explanation  between  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Guillaume,  when,  for  the  third 
iLine  in  their  lives,  they  found  themselves 
of  difterent  opinions,  manifested  itself  in 
a  terrible  manner. 

Finally,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, Augustine,  pale,  trembling,  and 
with  red  eyes,  made  her  appearance  be- 
fore her  father  and  mother.  The  poor 
child  related  artlessly  the  too  brief  story 
of  her  love.  Reassured  by  a  few  words 
from  her  father,  who  promised  to  listen  to 
her  in  silence,  she  gained  a  certain  cour- 
age in  pronouncing  before  her  parents  the 
name  of  her  dear  Theodore  de  Sommer- 
vieux  ;  and  she  put  a  malicious  emphasis 
upon  the  aristocratic  particle.*  Giving 
herself  up  to  the  new  charm  of  talking 
about  her  feelings,  she  mustered  up  bold- 
ness enough  to  decl;ire  with  innocent  firm- 
ness that  she  loved  Monsieur  de  Sommer- 
vieux,  that  she  had  written  to  him  to  that 
effect,  and,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  she 
added  :  "It  would  make  me  very  unhappy 
to  marry  anybody  else." 


*  Just  as  did  Balzac  himself,  by  inserting  the  de 
in  his  name. — EDrrOK. 


"  But,  Augustine,  is  it  possible  that  you 
don't  know  what  a  painter  is  ?  "'  cried  her 
mother  in  horror. 

"'  Madame  Guillaume  !  "  said  the  old 
father  to  silence  his  wife.  "  Augustine," 
he  went  on,  "  artists  are  generally  men 
upon  the  verge  of  star\'ation.  They  are 
too  great  spendthrifts  ever  to  be  anything 
but  worthless  fellows.  The  late  Monsieur 
Joseph  Vernet  was  a  customer  of  mine, 
also  the  late  Monsieur  Lekain  and  the  late 
Monsieur  Noverre.  Ah  !  if  you  knew  how 
many  tricks  that  Monsieur  Noverre,  Mon- 
sieur the  Chevalie*  de  Saint-Georges,  and, 
above  all.  Monsieur  Philidor,  played  on 
poor  Father  Che\Tel !  They  were  funny 
chaps,  I  know  that ;  they  all  have  the 
gift  of  talk  and  good  manners.  Ah ! 
never  was  your  Monsieur  Sumer  — 
Somm— " 

"De  Somraervieux,  father  !  " 

"'  Well,  De  Sommervieux,  then  !  Never 
was  he  as  agreeable  with  you  as  Monsieur 
the  Chevalier  de  Saint-Georges  was  with 
me  the  very  da^'  I  obtained  a  judgment 
against  him  from  the  consuls.  And  thej^ 
were  people  of  quality  in  old  times." 

"  But,  father.  Monsieur  Theodore  is  of 
noble  birth,  and  he  has  written  me  that 
he  is  rich.  His  father  was  called  the 
Chevalier  de  Sommervieux  before  the 
Revolution." 

At  these  words,  Monsieur  Guillaume 
looked  at  his  terrible  better-half,  who, 
like  an  angry  female,  was  tapping  the 
floor  with  the  tip  of  her  foot  and  keeping 
a  gloomy  silence  ;  she  even  avoided  cast- 
ing her  angry  eyes  upon  Augustine,  and 
seemed  to  leave  to  Monsieur  Guillaume 
the  whole  responsibilitj'  of  so  serious  an 
affair,  since  her  advice  was  not  listened 
to. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  her  apparent 
composure,  when  she  saw  her  husband 
resigning  himself  so  quietlj'  to  a  catas- 
trophe which  was  not  in  the  line  of  busi- 
ness, she  cried  out : 

"Indeed,  monsieur,  you  are  very  weak 
with  your  daughters — but — " 

The  noise  of  a  carriage  stopping  at  the 
door  suddenly  interrupted  the  lecture 
which  the  old  merchant  was  already 
dreading.   In  a  moment,  Madame  Roguin 


514 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


was  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and  look- 
ing at  tlie  three  actors  ia  this  domestic 
scene. 

'•  I  know  all,  cousin,'"  she  said,  with  an 
air  of  protection. 

Madame  Roguin  had  one  fault,  that  of 
thinking  that  the  wife  of  a  Parisian  no- 
tary could  play  the  part  of  a  ladj'  of 
studied  elegance. 

"  I  know  all,"  she  repeated,  "and  I 
come  into  this  Noah's  ark  like  the  dove 
with  the  olive-leaf.  I  have  read  that  alle- 
gory' in  the  'Genie  du  Christianisme,'" 
said  she,  turning  rounti  toward  Madame 
Guillaume;  "the  comparison  ought  to 
please  you,  cousin.  Do  you  know,"  she 
added,  smiling  upon  Augustine,  "that 
this  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux  is  a  charm- 
ing man  ?  He  has  given  me  this  morning 
my  portrait  executed  in  a  masterly  man- 
ner. It  is  worth  at  least  six  thousand 
francs. ' ' 

At  these  words,  she  gently  tapped  Mon- 
sieur Guillaume's  arm.  The  old  merchant 
could  not  help  puckering  up  his  lips  into 
a  pout  that  was  peculiar  to  him. 

"I  know  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux 
ver3'  well,"  resumed  the  dove.  '•  For 
a  fortnight  he  has  been  coming  to  my 
evenings,  and  he  is  a  great  attraction. 
He  has  related  all  his  troubles  to  me, 
and  has  chosen  me  for  his  advocate. 
Tins  very  morning  I  have  leai'ncd  that 
he  adores  Augustine ;  and  he  shall  have 
her.  Ah  !  cousin,  don't  shake  your  head 
like  that  lo  saj'  no.  Let  me  tell  you  that 
he  will  be  made  a  baron,  and  that  he  has 
just  been  appointed  chevalier  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor  by  the  emperor  himself  at  the 
Salon.  Roguin  has  become  his  notary, 
and  knows  all  about  his  affairs.  Well, 
Monsieur  de  Sommervieux  is  the  owTier 
of  landed  propertj^  that  yields  an  income 
of  twelve  thousand  livres.  Are  you  aware 
that  the  father-in-law  of  a  man  like  that 
can  amount  to  something — mayor  of  his 
arrondissement,  for  example  ?  Haven't 
you  seen  Monsieur  Dupont  made  a  count 
qf  the  empire  and  a  senator,  merely  for 
coming  in  his  capacity  of  mayor  to  greet 
the  emperor  at  his  entrance  into  Vienne  ? 
Oh !  this  marriage  must  be  brought 
about.      I  adore  this  fine  young    man. 


His  behavior  toward  Augustine  is  seen 
only  in  novels.  Yes,  little  one,  you  shall 
be  happy,  and  not  a  soul  but  what  would 
like  to  be  in  your  place.  The  Duchess  of 
Carigliano  comes  to  my  evenings,  and  she 
just  dotes  on  Monsieur  de  Sommervieux. 
Some  gossiping  tongues  say  she  is  there 
only  on  his  account ;  as  if  a  duchess  of 
yesterday  were  out  of  place  in  the  house 
of  a  Chevrel,  whose  family  has  a  hundred 
years  of  perfect  respectability  back  of  it. 
Augustine,"  continued  Madame  Roguin, 
after  a  short  pause,  "  I  have  seen  the 
porti'ait.  Heavens  !  how  beautiful  it  is  ! 
Do'  you  know  that  the  emperor  wanted 
to  see  it  ?  He  said,  laughingh',  to  the 
vice-constable,  that  if  there  were  many 
women  like  that  at  his  court,  while  such 
a  number  of  kings  were  visiting  it,  he 
would  guarantee  to  keep  peace  always  in 
Europe.     Isn't  that  flattering  ?  " 

The  storms  by  which  this  day  had  com- 
menced were  to  resemble  those  of  nature 
by  ending  in  pleasant  and  serene  weather. 
Madame  Roguin  displayed  such  powers  of 
seduction  in  her  talk,  she  mnnaged  to 
strike  so  many  strings  at  once  in  the  dry 
hearts  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Guil- 
laume, that  she  at  last  found  one  to  give 
her  the  advantage. 

At  this  strange  period,  commerce  and 
finance  had  more  than  ever  the  foolish 
mania  for  forming  alliances  with  the 
great  noblemen ;  and  .the  generals  of 
the  empire  profited  very  well  by  this 
state  of  things.  Monsieur  Guillaume 
was  particularly  opposed  to  this  deplox'- 
able  passion.  His  favorite  axioms  were 
that,  to  attain  happiness,  a  woman  ought 
to  maiTy  a  man  of  her  own  station  ;  sooner 
or  later,  one  was  sure  to  be  punished  for 
trying  to  climb  too  high  ;  love  held  out 
so  little  against  the  annoyances  of  living 
together,  that  very  good  qualities  must 
exist  in  husband  and  wife  for  them  to  be 
happy  ;  one  of  the  two  must  not  know 
more  than  the  other,  because,  above  all, 
it  was  necessary  to  understand  one  an- 
other ;  if  the  husband  spoke  Greek  and 
the  wife  Latin,  they  ran  the  risk  of  starv- 
ing to  death.  He  had  invented  this  sort 
of  a  proverb :  He  compared  the  mar- 
riages thus  made  to  those  ancient  stuffs 


HOUSE    OF    THE     TENmS-PLAYIXG     CAT. 


315 


of  silk  and  wool  in  which  the  silk  always 
ended  by  cutting-  up  the  wool.  However, 
tliere  is  so  much  vanitj'  at  the  bottom  of 
a  man's  heart,  that  the  prudence  of  the 
pilot  who  guided  the  Tennis-Playing  Cat 
so  well,  succumbed  under  Madame  Ro- 
guin"s  aggressive  volubility.  The  severe 
Madame  Guillaume  was  the  first  to  find 
reasons,  in  her  daughter's  inclination,  for 
departing  from  her  principles  and  for  con- 
senting to  receive  Monsieur  de  Sommer- 
vieux,  whom  she  promised  herself  to  sub- 
ject to  a  rigorous  examination. 

The  old  merchant  went  in  search  of 
Joseph  Lebas,  and  informed  him  of  the 
condition  of  affairs.  At  half-past  six 
o'clock,  the  dining-room  made  famous 
by  the  painter  united  under  its  glass  roof 
Madame  and  Monsieur  Roguin,  the  young 
painter  and  his  charming  Augustine,  Jo- 
seph Lebas,  patiently  accepting  his  happi- 
ness, and  Mademoiselle  Virginie,  whose 
headache  had  ceased.  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Guillaume  beheld  in  the  future  their 
children  established  and  the  destinies  of 
the  Tennis-Playing  Cat  intrusted  to  skill- 
ful hands. 

Their  satisfaction  was  at  its  height  when 
TheodM'e,  at  dessert,  made  them  a  pres- 
ent of  the  wonderful  picture  whi:h  they 
had  not  yet  seen,  and  which  represented 
the  interior  of  this  old  shop,  to  which  so 
much  happiness  was  due. 

"  That  is  very  pretty' !  "  exclaimed  Guil- 
laume. "Just  to  think  that  somebody 
was  willing  to  give  thirty  tliousand  francs 
for  that ! " 

"  But  the  lappets  of  my  cap  are  there, 
to  be  sure  !  "  put  in  Madame  Guillaume. 

'•'  And  those  goods  all  spread  out,"  add- 
ed Lebas ;  "it  seems  as  if  one  might  take 
hold  of  them  with  his  hand." 

"Draperies    alwaj-s    look  very  well," 

answered   the  painter.     "We  should  be 

only  too  happy,   we    modern  artists,   if 

we  could  attain  the  perfection  of  antique 

,  '  drapery." 

"  So  you  like  dry -goods  ?  "  cried  Father 
Guillaume.  "Well!  well!  I'll  shake  hands 
with  you  on  that,  my  3'oung  friend.  Since 
you  have  some  respect  for  business,  we 
.shall  understand  one  another.  Ah  !  why 
should  people  despise  it  ?    The  world  com- 


menced witli  it,  for  Adam  sold  Paradise 
for  an  apple.  That  was  not  a  very  suc- 
cessful speculation,  indeed  !  " 

And  the  old  merchant  burst  into  a  loud, 
hearty  laugh,  excited  by  the  champagne 
which  he  sent  around  the  table  so  gener- 
ously. The  bandage  covering  the  young 
artist's  e^'es  was  so  thick  that  he  thought 
his  future  relatives-in-law  very  amiable. 
He  did  not  disdain  to  enliven  them  bj'  a 
few  sallies  of  wit  in  good  taste.  And  he 
became  a  general  favorite.  In  the  even- 
ing, when  the  very  substantially  fur- 
nished drawing-room,  as  Guillaume  ex- 
pressed it,  was  deserted;  while  Madame 
Guillaume  went  from  the  table  to  the 
mantelpiece,  from  chandeUer  to  candle- 
stick, hurriedly  blowing  out  the  hghts, 
the  honest  merchant,  Avhose  head  was 
always  clear,  immediately  business  or 
money  came  into  question,  drew  his 
daughter  Augustine  toward  him,  and, 
after  seating  her  on  his  knees,  spoke  to 
her  as  follows  : 

"  My  dear  child,  you  shall  many  your 
Sommervieux,  since  you  wish  it ;  you 
may  be  allowed  to  risk  your  capital  of 
happiness.  I  don't  mean,  however,  tok»be 
altogether  carried  away  by  these  thirty 
thousand  francs  earned  by  spoiUng  good 
canvases.  The  money  that  comes  in  so 
quickly  goes  out  in  the  same  way.  Did 
I  not  hear  this  young  madcap  say  this 
evening  that,  if  money  was  round,  it  was 
so  that  it  might  roll?  It  may  be  round 
for  extravagant  people,  but  it  is  flat  for 
the  economical  people  that  pile  it  up. 
Now,  my  child,  this  fine  fellow  talks  tfi 
giving  you  carriages  and  diamonds.  He 
has  the  monej-,  and  he  maj^  spend  it  on 
you,  if  he  likes  !  I  have  nothing  to  say 
against  that.  But,  as  for  what  I  give 
you,  I  don't  want  the  money  I  have 
scraped  together  with  so  much  trouble  to 
be  squandered  on  carriages  and  gewgaws. 
The  man  that  spends  too  much  is  never 
rich.  With  the  hundred  thousand  crowns 
of  your  dowry  you  can't  quite  buy  all 
Paris.  It  does  not  matter  that  you  will 
some  day  inherit  a  few  hundred  thousand 
francs  ;  I  shall  make  you  wait  for  them, 
you  may  depend,  as  long  as  possible. 
Consequently,  I  took  your  suitor  aside 


316 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


into  a  corner,  and  a  man  who  could  man- 
ag-o  the  Lecoq  failure  did  not  find  it  very 
hard  to  make  an  artist  consent  to  having 
his  wife's  property  settled  on  herself.  I 
shall  have  a  sharp  eye  on  the  contract 
to  get  the  settlements  all  rig-ht  that  he 
proposes  to  make  on  you.  Well,  my 
child,  I  expect  to  be  a  grandfather,  in- 
deed, and  I  want  to  beg-in  thinking^  of 
mj'^  grandchildren  at  once.  Swear  to  me 
right  here  that  you  will  never  sig-n  any 
paper  about  nione^'  without  my  advice ; 
and,  if  I  follow  after  Father  Chevrel  too 
soon,  swear  to  me  that  you  will  consult 
young-  Lebas,  your  brother-in-law.  Prom- 
ise me  that." 

"Yes,  father,  I  promise." 

At  these  words,  spoken  in  a  soft  voice, 
the  old  man  kissed  his  daughtei-  on  both 
cheeks.  That  night  all  the  lovers  slept 
almost  as  peacefullj^  as  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Guillaume. 

A  few  months  after  this  memorable 
Sunday,  the  high  altar  of  Saint  Leu 
witnessed  two  very  different  marriag-es. 
Augustine  and  Theodore  appeared  there 
in  all  the  radiance  of  happiness,  their 
eyes  shining  with  love,  elegantly  dressed, 
and  waited  for  by  a  splendid  equipage. 
Coming  in  a  good  livery  coach  with  her 
family,  Virginie,  leaning  on  her  father's 
arm,  followed  her  young  sister  humbly 
and  in  the  simplest  attire,  like  a  shadow 
necessary  to  the  harmony  of  the  picture. 

Monsieur  Guillaume  had  taken  all  the 
pains  imaginable  at  the  church  to  have 
Virginie  married  before  Augustine ;  but 
he  was  pained  to  see  on  every  occasion 
the  higher  and  lower  clergy  address  first 
the  more  elegant  of  the  brides.  He  heard 
some  of  his  neighbors  particularly  ap- 
prove of  the  good  sense  shown  by  Made- 
moiselle Virginie,  who  made,  they  said, 
the  more  substantial  marriage  and  re- 
mained faithful  to  her  part  of  the  town  ; 
while  they  threw  out  taunts,  prompted 
by  envy,  at  Augustine,  who  married  an 
artist  and  a  nobleman.  They  added,  in 
a  sort  of  dismay,  that  if  the  Guillaumes 
had  ambition,  it  would  be  the  ruin  of  the 
dry-goods  business.  An  old  dealer  in  fans 
having  said  that  this  spendthrift  would 
soon  bring  him  down  to  abject  poverty, 


Father  Guillaume  congratulated  himself 
in  petto  on  his  prudence  in  the  matri- 
monial agreements.  In  tlie  evening,  after 
a  sumptuous  ball,  followed  by  one  of 
those  abundant  suppers  the  memory  of 
which  is  beginning  to  be  lost  in  the  pres- 
ent generation.  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Guillaume  remained  in  their  Rue  du 
Colombier  house,  where  the  wedding- 
feast  had  come  ofi*.  Monsieur  and  Jila- 
dame  Lebas  returned  in  their  hired  car- 
riage to  tlie  old  house  on  the  Rue  Saint 
Denis  to  guide  the  fortunes  of  the  Tennis- 
Playing  Cat.  The  artist,  intoxicated  with 
happmess,  took  his  dear  Augustine  in  his 
arms,  lifted  her  out  quickly,  when  their 
coupe  reached  the  Rue  des  Trois-Freres, 
and  carried  her  into  apartments  which 
had  been  beautified  by  all  the  arts. 

The  fire  of  passion  possessing  Theodore 
made  the  young  couple  pass  nearly  a 
whole  year  without  the  lightest  clouds 
coming  tp  dim  the  azure  of  the  heaven 
under  which  they  lived.  Life  had  noth- 
ing dull  about  it  for  these  two  lovers. 
Theodore  lavished  over  every  da,Y  incred- 
ible embellishments  of  pleasure ;  he  de- 
lighted to  var^'  the  transports  of  affec- 
tion with  the  soft  languor  of  repose,  when 
souls  are  launched  so  high  in  ecstasy  that 
they  seem  to  forget  the  corporal  union. 
Incapable  of  reflection,  the  happy  Augus- 
tine lent  herself  to  the  happiness  of  the 
passing  days.  She  was  too  much  in  love 
to  calculate  for  the  future,  and  did  not 
imagine  that  so  delicious  a  life  could  ever 
come  to  an  end.  Happy  in  being  now 
the  sole  pleasure  of  her  husband,  slie 
thought  that  this  inextinguishable  love 
would  always  be  for  her  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  all  adornments,  as  her  devotion  and 
obedience  would  be  an  eternal  attraction. 

In  fine,  the  felicitj'^  of  love  had  made 
her  so  brilliant  that  her  beauty-  inspired 
her  with  pride,  and  gave  her  the  con- 
sciousness of  always  being  able  to  reign 
over  a  man  so  easj'  to  set  on  fire  as  Mon- 
sieur de  Sommervieux.  Thus  her  position 
as  a  wife  brought  her  no  other  lessons 
than  those  of  love.  In  the  bosom  of  this 
happiness,  she  was  still  the  same  ignorant 
little  girl  who  used  to  live  obscurely  in 
the  Rue  Saint  Denis ;    and  she   did  not 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TENNIS-PLAtlNG     CAT. 


ZYi 


dream  of  acquiring  the  manners,  the  edu- 
cation, and  the  tastes  of  the  societ^^  in 
which  she  was  to  live.  Her  words  were 
words  of  love ;  she  assuredly  displayed 
in  them  a  sort  of  suppleness  of  mind  and 
a  certain  delicacy  of  expression,  but  she 
used  the  language  common  to  all  women 
when  they  find  themselves  plunged  into 
the  passion  that  seems  to  be  their  ele- 
ment. 

If,  by  chance,  an  idea  jarring  with  those 
of  Theodore  was  expressed  by  Augustine, 
the  j-oung  artist  laughed  at  it,  as '  one 
laughs  at  a  foreigner's  first  mistakes, 
which  end  by  becoming  wearisome,  if  they 
are  not  corrected.  In  spite  of  so  much 
love,  at  the  expiration  of  this  year,  as 
charming  as  it  was  fleeting,  Sommervieux 
realized  one  morning  the  necessity-  of  re- 
suming his  old  labors  and  habits.  His 
wife  was  in  an  interesting  condition.  He 
looked  up  his  friends  once  more.  During 
the  long  sufferings  of  the  year  when,  for 
the  first  time,  a  young  wife  gives  life  to 
her  child,  he  worked  with  ardor,  of  course  ; 
but,  occasionally,  he  went  back  into  the 
world  in  search  of  some  distractions. 

The  house  he  most  willingly  visited  was 
that  of  the  Duchess  of  Carigliano,  who 
had  at  last  succeeded  in  attracting  the 
celebrated  artist. 

When  Augustine  was  restored  to  health, 
when  her  son  no  longer  claimed  that  as- 
siduous attention  which  keeps  a  mother 
from  the  pleasures  of  the  world,  Theodore 
had  come  to  feel  a  craving  for  that  enjoj'- 
ment  of  self-love  g-iven  us  by  society',  when 
we  appear  in  it  with  a  beautiful  woman, 
the  object  of  envy  and  admiration.  To 
show  herself  in  drawing-rooms  with  the 
splendor  borrowed  from  her  husband's 
glorj',  to  see  other  women  grow  jealous 
of  her,  was  to  Augustine  a  new  harvest 
of  pleasure  ;  but  it  was  the  last  glimmer 
of  her  conjugal  happiness. 

She  began  by  offending  her  husband's 
vanity  when,  despite  vain  efforts,  she  let 
out  her  ignorance,  the  incorrectness  of 
her  language,  and  the  narrowness  of  her 
ideas.  Overpowered  during  almost  two 
and  a  half  years  by  the  first  transports  of 
love,  Sommervieux's  character  resumed, 
with  the  tranquillity  of  a  less  j'oung  pos- 


session, its  natural  bent  and  the  habits 
temporarily  turned  out  of  their  ordinary 
course.  Poetry,  painting,  and  the  exqui- 
site; pleasures  of  imagination  possess  im- 
prescriptible rights  over  cultured  minds. 
These  needs  of  a  strong  soul  had  not  been 
satisfied  in  Theodore  during  these  two 
years ;  they  had  merely  found  a  new  pas- 
ture. When  the  fields  of  love  had  been 
traversed,  when  the  artist  had,  like  a  child, 
picked  roses  and  blue-bonnets  with  such 
aviditjr  that  he  did  not  notice  his  hands 
could  no  longer  hold  them,  the  scene 
changed.  If  the  painter  showed  his  wife 
the  sketches  of  his  most  beautiful  pict- 
ures, he  heard  her  cry  out,  as  Father 
Guillaume  might  'have  done  :  "It  is  ver^' 
pretty  !  "  This  dispassionate  admiration 
did  not  proceed  from  a  conscientious  feel- 
ing, but  from  her  reliance  upon  the  word 
of  love.  Augustine  preferred  a  glance  to' 
the  finest  picture.  The  only  sublimity 
she  knew  was  that  of  the  heart. 

At  length,  Theodore  could  not  shut  his 
eyes  to  the  conviction  of  a  cruel  truth — 
his  wife  was  not  affected  by  poetry,  she 
did  not  dwell  in  his  sphere,  she  did  not 
follow  him  in  all  his  caprices,  improvisa- 
tions, joys  and  griefs  ;  she  walked  earth 
to  earth  in  the  real  world,  while  he  car- 
ried his  head  in  the  skies.  Ordinary  minds 
cannot  appreciate  the  ever  renewed  suf- 
ferings of  a  being  who,  united  to  another 
by  the  closest  of  bonds,  is  obliged  to  keep 
back  unceasingly  the  most  cherished  ex- 
pansions of  his  thought,  and  to  crush' 
down  the  images  that  a  magic  power 
forces  him  to  create.  This  torture  is  all 
the  more  cruel  to  him  because  his  affection 
for  his  companion  requires,  as  its  first 
law,  that  one  should  hide  nothing  from 
the  other,  and  that  the  effusions  of  thought 
should  be  mingled  as  well  as  the  outpour- 
ings of  the  soul.  The  will  of  natui'e  is  not 
to  be  evaded  with  impunity  ;  it  is  as  inex- 
orable as  necessity,  which  is  surely  a  sort 
of  social  nature.  Sommervieux  sought 
refuge  in  the  calm  and  silence  of  his 
studio,  hoping  that  the  habit  of  living 
with  artists  might  cultivate  his  wife  and 
develop  in  her  the  benumbed  germs  of 
higher  intelligence,  which  some  superior 
minds  believe  to  be  latent  in  all  beings  ; 


318 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


but  Augustine  was  too  sinccrelj'  relig-ious 
not  to  take  alarm  at  the  tone  of  the  artists. 

At  the  first  dinner  Theodore  gave,  she 
heard  a  young  painter  say,  with  that 
childish  frivolity  which  she  could  not  un- 
derstand, and  which  absolves  a  jest  from 
all  irreligion : 

"But,  madame,  your  paradise  is  not 
more  beautiful  than  Raphael's  '  Trans- 
figuration ?  '  Yet  I  got  tired  of  looking 
at  that." 

Augustine  brought,  therefore,  into  this 
intellectual  society  a  spirit  of  distrust 
which  escaped  no  one.  She  was  an  em- 
barrassment. Embarrassed  artists  are 
merciless  ;  they  either  fly  or  scoff. 

Madame  Guillaume  had,  among  other 
weaknesses,  that  of  carrying  to  excess  the 
dignity  which  seemed  to  her  the  proper 
thing  for  a  married  woman ;  and,  al- 
though she  had  often  made  fun  of  it, 
Augustine  could  not  refrain  from  a  slight 
imitation  of  her  mother's  prudery.  This 
exaggeration  of  modesty,  not  always 
avoided  by  virtuous  women,  suggested  a 
few  roughly-penciled  epigrams,  the  inno- 
cent raillery  of  which  was  in  too  good 
•taste  for  Sommervieux  to  get  angry  at 
tliem.  If  these  jests  had  been  even  more 
savage,  they  were,  after  all,  onlj^  a  sort 
of  revenge  taken  on  him  by  his  friends. 
But  nothing  could  be  slight  to  a  mind  re- 
ceiving outside  impressions  as  easily  as 
that  of  Theodore.  Consequently  he  began 
insensibly  to  feel  a  coldness  that  could 
only  go  on  increasing.  To  arrive  at  con- 
jugal happiness,  a  mountain  must  be 
climbed,  the  narrow  summit  of  which  \S 
very  near  a  slope  as  steep  as  it  is  slipperj^, 
and  the  painter's  love  was  descending  this 
slope.  He  judged  his  wife  incapable  of 
appreciating  the  moral  considerations 
that  justified,  in  his  own  eyes,  the  singu- 
larity of  his  manners  toward  her,  and 
deemed  himself  quite  innocent  in  hiding 
from  her  thoughts  which  he  did  not  under- 
stand and  faults  not  to  be  excused  before 
the  tribunal  of  the  average  woman's  con- 
science. Augustine  shut  herself  up  in  dull 
and  silent  pain.  These  secret  feelings  in- 
terposed between  husband  and  wife  a  veil 
that  was  to  thicken  from  day  to  day. 

Although  her  husband  was  not  wanting 


in  kindness  to  her,  Augustine  could  not 
help  trembling  as  she  saw  him  reserve  for 
society  the  treasures  of  wit  and  grace 
which  he  was  wont  of  old  to  lay  at  her 
feet.  Soon,  she  gave  an  unpleasant  inter- 
pretation to  the  bright  sayings  that  pass 
current  in  the  world  about  the  inconstancy 
of  men.  She  did  not  complain,  but  her 
attitude  was  equivalent  to  reproaches. 

Three  years  after  her  maiTiage,  this 
young  and  handsome  woman,  who  rode  by 
so  brilliantly  in  her  brilliant  equipage, 
who  lived  in  a  sphere  of  glory  and  wealth 
envied  by  so  many  people  thoughtless  and 
incapable  of  justly  estimating  the  condi- 
tions of  life,  was  the  prey  of  violent  griefs. 
Her  color  paled ;  she  reflected,  she  com- 
pared ;  then  unhappiness  unfolded  to  her 
the  first  texts  of  experience.  She  resolved 
to  remain  courageously  within  the  circle 
of  her  duties,  hoping  that  this  generous 
conduct  would  make  her  sooner  or  later 
recover  her  husband's  love  ;  but  this  was 
not  to  be. 

When  Sommervieux,  weary  of  labor, 
emerged  from  his  studio,  Augustine  did 
not  conceal  her  work  so  promptly  but  that 
the  painter  could  see  his  wife  was  mend- 
ing, with  the  care  of  a  good  housekeeper, 
the  linen  of  the  house  and  his  own.  She 
furnished,  liberally  and  without  a  mur- 
mur, the  money  necessary  for  her  hus- 
band's extravagance ;  but,  in  her  desire 
to  guard  her  dear  Theodore's  fortune,  she 
showed  herself  economical  on  her  own  ac- 
count and  in  certain  details  of  domestic 
management.  This  conduct  is  incompati- 
ble with  the  free-and-easy  ways  of  artists, 
who,  at  the  end  of  their  career,  have  en- 
joyed life  so  much  that  they  never  ask 
themselves  the  reason  of  their  ruin.  It  is 
idle  to  note  each  of  the  shades  of  color 
through  which  the  brilliant  tint  of  their 
honeymoon  faded  awaj^  and  left  them  in 
deep  darkness. 

One  evening,  the  saddened  Augustine, 
who  had  long  been  hearing  her  husband 
speak  enthusiastically  of  the  Duchess  of 
Carigliano,  received  from  a  lady  friend 
some  wiclcedly  charitable  information  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  attachment 
which  SoraraerAieux  had  conceived  for 
this  celebrated  coquette  of  the  Imperial 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TENNIS-PLAYING     OAT. 


319 


Court.  At  the  age  of  twenty-one,  in  all 
the  splendor  of  youth  and  beautj',  Augus- 
tine saw  herself  betrayed  for  a  woman  of 
thirty-six.  Feeling  wretched  in  the  midst 
of  society  and  its,  to  her,  desolate  enter- 
tainments, the  poor  child  understood  noth- 
ing of  the  admiration  she  excited  nor  of 
the  envy  she  inspired.  Her  face  "took  on 
a  new  expression.  Melancholy  infused  into 
her  features  the  sweetness  of  resignation 
and  the  pallor  of  a  despised  love. 

It  was  not  long  before  attention  was 
paid  her  by  the  most  fascinating  of  men ; 
but  .she  remained  lonely  and  pure  in  heart. 
Some  contemptuous  words  dropped  bj- her 
husband  gave  her  incredible  despair.  A 
fatal  light  made  her  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  want  of  contact  which,  in  consequence 
of  the  deficiencies  of  her  education,  pre- 
vented the  perfect  union  of  her  soul  with 
Theodore's ;  she  had  love  enough  to  ab- 
solve him  and  to  condemn  herself.  She 
wept  tears  of  blood,  and  realized,  only  too 
late,  that  there  are  misalliances  of  intel- 
lect as  well  as  misalliances  of  manners 
and  I'ank.  Musing  on  the  spring-tide  de- 
lights of  her  marriage  she  comprehended 
the  extent  of  her  past  happiness,  and 
agi'eed  within  herself  that  so  rich  a 
harvest  of  love  was  a  whole  life,  which 
could  only  be  atoned  for  by  unhappiness. 
Yet  she  loved  too  sincerelj'  to  lose  all 
hope ;  and,  at  twentj'-one  years  of  age, 
she  ventured  to  undertake  to  complete 
her  education  and  to  make  her  imagina- 
tion at  least  worthy  of  the  one  she  ad- 
mired. 

"If  I  am  not  a  poet,"  she  said  to  her- 
self, "  at  least  I  am  g'oing  to  understand 
poetry." 

And,  displaying  now  that  strength  of 
will  and  that  energy  which  all  women 
possess  whenever  thej'  are  in  love,  Ma- 
dame de  Sommervieux  attempted  to 
change  her  character,  her  manners,  and 
her  habits;  but  in  devouring  volumes 
and  studying  bravelj'^  she  onlj'  succeeded 
in  becoming  less  ignorant.  Alertness  of 
mind  and  the  graces  of  conversation  are 
a  gift  of  nature  or  the  fruit  of  an  educa- 
tion commenced  in  the  cradle.  She  could 
appi-eciate  music  and  enjoy  it,  but  could 
not    sing  with    taste.      She    understood 


literature  and  the  beauties  of  poetry, 
but  it  was  too  late  for  her  to  enrich  her 
rebellious  memory  with  them.  She  list- 
ened with  pleasure  to  the  chat  of  society, 
but  she  contributed  nothing  brilliant  to  it 
herself.  Her  religious  ideas  and  the  prej- 
udices of  her  youth  militated  against  the 
complete  emancipation  of  her  intelligence. 
At  length  there  had  sprung  up  a  feeling 
against  her  in  Theodore's  mind  which  slie 
could  not  vanquish.  The  artist  laughed  at 
the  people  who  praised  up  his  wife  to  him, 
and  his  merriment  had  some  basis.  He 
awed  this  j^oung  and  touching  creature 
so  much  that  she  trembled  in  his  presence 
or  when  they  were  talking  together.  Em- 
barrassed by  her  excessive  desire  of  pleas- 
ing, she  felt  her  mind  and  her  knowledge 
melt  away  in  mere  feeling.  Augustine's 
fidelity',  even,  was  displeasing  to  this  un- 
faithful husband,  who  seemed  to  want 
her  to  commit  faults  by  accusing  hei' 
virtue  of  a  lack  of  sensibilit3\  Augus- 
tine tried  in  vain  to  abdicate  her  rea.son. 
to  bend  to  her  husband's  caprices  and 
fancies,  and  to  devote  herself  to  the  self- 
ishness of  his  vanity ;  she  did  not  reap 
the  fruit  of  her  sacrifices.  Perhaps  the^' 
had  both  let  the  moment  pass  when  two 
souls  can  understand  each  other.  At  last, 
the  young  wife's  too  sensitive  heart  re- 
ceived one  of  those  blows  that  ■wrench  the 
bonds  of  attachment  so  forcibly  as  to 
make  one  believe  them  broken.  She  felt 
herself  isolated ;  but  soon  a  fatal  thought 
sugge.sted  to  her  that  she  should  seek 
consolation  and  counsel  in  the  bosom  of 
her  familJ^ 

One  morning,  therefore,  she  turned  her 
steps  toward  the  grotesque  fagade  of  tlie 
humble  and  quiet  house  where  her  child- 
hood had  been  spent.  She  sighed  as  she 
saw  once  more  that  casement,  from  which 
she  had  long  ago  thrown  a  first  kiss  to 
the  man  who  was  now  shedding  over  her 
life  as  much  glory  as  unhappiness.  Notli- 
ing  was  changed  in  the  den  where  thi> 
dry-goods  business  was  going  on  as  flour- 
ishingly as  ever.  Augustine's  sister  oc- 
cupied her  hiother's  place  at  the  old 
counter.  The  afflicted  young  woman  met 
her  brother-in-law  with  his  pen  back  of 
his  ear,  and  she  was  hardly  listened  to, 


320 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


so  busy  did  he  appear  to  be.  The  foi-mid- 
ablo  signs  of  a  general  taking  account  of 
stock  were  manifest  around  him  ;  so  he 
left  her,  begging  her  to  excuse  him.  She 
was  received  coldly  enough  by  her  sister, 
who  bore  her  somewhat  of  a  grudge.  In 
truth,  Augustine,  brilliant,  and  alighting 
from  a  handsome  carriage,  had  never 
come  to  see  her  sister  except  in  passing. 
The  wife  of  the  prudent  Lebas  imagined 
that  money  was  the  real  cause  of  this 
early  visit,  and  she  maintained  an  air  of 
i-eserve  that  made  Augustine  smile  more 
than  once.  The  painter's  wife  saw  that, 
save  for  the  lappets  on  the  cap,  her 
mother  had  found  in  Virginie  a  successor 
sure  to  keep  up  the  antique  honor  of  the 
Tennis-Playing  Cat.  At  luncheon,  she 
noticed  certain  changes  in  the  i-egulations 
of  the  house  that  did  honor  to  the  good 
sense  of  Joseph  Lebas  ;  the  clerks  did  not 
rise  at  dessert,  they  were  given  the  lib- 
erty of  talking,  and  the  abundance  of 
the  table  announced  comfort  without  ex- 
travagance. The  elegant  young  woman 
found  there  tickets  for  a  box  at  the  Fran- 
gais,  where  she  remembered  having  seen 
her  sister  at  long  intervals.  Madame 
Lebas  wore  over  her  shoulders  a  cash- 
mere shawl,  the  magnificence  of  which 
proved  her  husband's  generosity  toward 
her.  The  couple,  indeed,  progressed  with 
their  century.  Augustine  was  soon  pene- 
trated with  emotion  on  realizing,  during 
two-thirds  of  this  day,  the  equable  happi- 
ness, without  enthusiasm,  it  is  true,  but 
yet  without  storms,  which  this  well- 
matched  pair  enjoyed. 

They  hnd  taken  up  life  like  a  commer- 
cial enteriorise,  where  it  is  chiefly  neces- 
sary to  give  strict  attention  to  business. 
Not  having  encountered  an  excessive  love 
in  her  husband,  the  wife  had  applied  her- 
self to  bringing  it  to  life.  Insensibly 
induced  to  esteem  and  cherish  Virginie, 
the  time  it  required  for  happiness  to  ap- 
pear was  a  guarantee  of  its  duration  to 
Joseph  Lebas  and  his  wife.  Therefore, 
when  the  plaintive  Augustine  set  forth 
her  painful  situation,  she  had  to  endure 
the  flood  of  commonplaces  which  the 
moral  philosophj'  of  the  Rue  Saint  Denis 
furnished  to  her  sister. 


"The  mischief  is  done,  wife,"  said 
Joseph  Lebas  ;  "we  must  try  to  give  our 
sister  good  advice." 

Then,  the  clever  merchant  analyzed  in 
a  dull  way  the  resources  which  the  laws 
and  customs  might  offer  Augustine  for 
coming  out  of  this  ci'isis;  he  numbered, 
so  to  speak,  his  remarks  on  them,  ar- 
ranged them  in  categories  according  to 
their  imjiortance,  as  if  it  had  been  a  ques- 
tion of  merchandise  of  different  qualities  ; 
then  he  put  them  in  the  scales,  weighed 
them,  and  concluded  by  developing  the 
necessity  for  his  sister-in-law  to  make  up 
her  mind  to  something  desperate,  which 
did  not  at  all  satisfy  the  love  she  still  felt 
for  her  husband  ;  and  this  feeling  was 
roused  in  all  its  strength  when  she  heard 
Joseph  Lebas  talking  of  legal  proceedings. 

Augustine  thanked  her  two  friends, 
and  went  back  home  more  undecided 
even  than  she  had  been  before  consulting 
them.  She  ventured  then  to  go  to  the 
old  house  in  the  Rue  du  Colombier,  with 
the  intention  of  confessing  her  miseries  to 
her  father  and  mother  ;  for  she  resembled 
those  sick  people  in  such  a  desperate  strait 
that  they  try  all  sorts  of  prescriptions, 
and  even  trust  themselves  to  old  women's 
remedies.  The  aged  couple  received  their 
daughter  with  a  show  of  feeling  that  quite 
moved  her.  This  visit  brought  them  a 
distraction,  and  was  as  good  as  money  to 
them.  For  four  j-ears  they  had  been 
going  through  hfe  like  navigators  with- 
out aim  and  without  compass.  Seated  at 
their  fireside,  thej^  related  to  one  another 
all  the  disasters  of  .the  Maximum,  their 
former  purchases  of  dry- goods,  the  way 
thej^  had  avoided  bankruptcies,  and  espe- 
cially that  famous  Lecoq  failure— Father 
Guillaume's  battle  of  Marengo.  When 
they  had  exhausted  the  old  lawsuits,  they 
recapitulated  the  amounts  of  their  most 
profitable  inventories,  and  told  each  other 
the  old  stories  of  the  Saint  Denis  Quarter. 

At  two  o'clock,  Father  Guillaumewent 
to  take  a  look  at  the  establishment  of  the 
Tennis-Playing  Cat;  on  the  way  back, 
he  stopped  at  all  the  shops  in  other  days 
his  rivals,  and  their  young  proprietors  had 
hopes  of  enticing  the  old  merchant  into 
some  risky  discount,  which,  as  was  his 


HOUSE    OF    THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


321 


custom,  he  never  positively  refused.  Two 
g-ood  Norman  horses  were  dying-  of  fat  in 
tlie  stable  of  the  house ;  Madame  Guil- 
laume  never  used  them,  except  when  she 
was  drawn  to  the  high  mass  of  her  parish 
Gvery  Sunday.  Three  times  a  week  this 
respectable  couple  had  companj^  to  din- 
ner. 

Through  the  influence  of  his  son-in-law, 
Sommerv'ieux,  Father  Guillaume  had  been 
appointed  a  member  of  the  advisory  com- 
mittee for  the  uniforming  of  the  troops. 
Since  her  husband  had  thus  found  a  place 
high  up  in  the  administration,  Madame 
Guillaume  had  taken  a  resolution  to  keep 
up  appearances.  Her  apartments  were 
encumbered  with  so  many  g-old  and  silver 
ornaments,  and  so  many  pieces  of  taste- 
less furniture  of  a  certain  value,  that  the 
simplest  room  there  resembled  a  chapel. 
Economy'  and  extravagance  seemed  to 
contend  in  each  of  the  accessories  of  this 
house.  One  would  have  said  that  Mon- 
sieur Guillaume  had  had  in  view  an  in- 
vestment of  his  money,  even  when  he  was 
buying  a  candlestick.  In  the  midst  of 
this  bazaar,  the  richness  of  which  gave 
evidence  of  the  couple's  lack  of  occupa- 
tion, Sommervieux's  celebrated  picture 
had  obtained  the  place  of  honor,  and  was 
a  great  comfort  to  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Guillaume,  who,  twenty  times  in  the  course 
of  the  day,  turned  eyes  tricked  out  with 
eye-glasses  toward  this  imag-e  of  their 
former  life,  to  them  so  stirring-  and 
amusing-. 

The  sight  of  this  house  and  of  these 
apartments,  where  everj^hing-  had  a 
flavor  of  old  age  and  mediocritj',  the 
spectacle  presented  'by  these  two  beings 
seemingly  cast  ashore  upon  a  golden 
rock  far  from  the  world  and  from  life- 
giving-  ideas,  surprised  Augustine.  She 
contemplated  at  this  moment  the  second 
part  of  the  picture  whose  beginning  had 
struck  her  in  the  house  of  Joseph  Lebas — 
the  picture  of  a  life,  restless,  although 
without  advance  ;  a  species  of  mechanical 
and  instinctive  existence  similar  to  that 
of  beavers.  She  had  then  I  know  not 
what  kind  of  a  pride  in  her  owTi  sorrows, 
remembering  they  had  their  source  in 
eighteen  months  of  happiness  which  was 

Balzac— K 


worth  in  her  eyes  a  thousand  such  exist- 
ences as  this,  with  its  apparently  horrible 
void  ;  but  she  concealed  this  rather  un- 
charitable feeling,  and  put  forth  for  her 
aged  parents  the  new  graces  of  her  mind, 
the  coquettishness  of  tenderness  which 
love  had  revealed  to  her,  and  favorably 
disposed  them  to  listen  to  her  matrimo- 
nial grievances.  The  old  people  had  a 
weakness  for  this  sort  of  confidences. 
Madame  Guillaume  wished  to  be  informed 
of  the  slightest  details  of  this  strange 
life,  which,  to  her,  had  something  fabu- 
lous about  it.  The  travels  of  the  Baron 
de  la  Hontan,  which  she  was  alwa^ys  com- 
mencing without  ever  finishing,  had  noth- 
ing more  unprecedented  to  tell  her  about 
the  savages  of  Canada. 

"  What,  child,  your  husband  shuts 
himself  up  with  women,  and  you  are  silly 
enough  to  believe  he  is  drawing  them  ?  " 

At  this  exclamation,  the  grandmother 
laid  her  glasses  upon  a  little  work- 
stand,  shook  out  her  skii'ts,  and  placed 
her  clasped  hands  on  her  knees,  elevated 
by  a  foot-stove,  her  favorite  pedestal. 

"But,  mother,  all  painters  are  obliged 
to  have  models." 

"He  took  good  care  not  to  tell  us  all 
about  that  when  he  asked  your  hand  in 
marriage.  If  I  had  known  it,  I  should  not 
have  given  my  daughter  to  a  man  en- 
gaged in  such  a  trade.  Our  religion  for- 
bids such  horrors ;  they  are  not  moral. 
And  at  what  time  did  you  say  he  came 
home  at  night .'' "' 

"About  one  or  two  o'clock." 

The  husband  and  wife  looked  at  one 
another  in  deep  astonishment. 

"So  he  gambles?  "  said  Monsieur  Guil- 
laume. "  It  was  only  the  gamblers,  in 
my  time,  who  went  home  so  late." 

Augustine  pouted  her  lips  a  little  to  re- 
pel this  accusation. 

"He  must  make  you  spend  some  tire- 
some nights  waiting  for  him,"  resumed 
Madame  Guillaume.  "But,  no,  you  go 
to  bed,  don't  you  ?  And  when  he  has 
lost  money,  the  monster  wakes  you  up." 

"No,  mother;  he  is  sometimes,  on  the 
contrary,  verj'  cheerful.  Quite  often, 
when  it  is  a  fine  night,  he  asks  me  to 
get  up  and  take  a  walk  in  the  woods." 


322 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"In  the  woods,  at  such  hours?  You 
must  have  very  small  apartments,  if  his 
chamber  and  drawing- -rooms  are  not 
enough,  and  he  has  to  run  out  of  doors 
in  that  way.  But  it  is  to  make  you  catch 
cold  that  the  rascal  proposes  such  excur- 
sions to  you.  He  wants  to  get  rid  of  you. 
Was  there  ever  a  steady  man,  in  a  regu- 
lar business,  who  galloped  about  so  like  a 
were-wolf  ? "' 

"But,  mother,  jou  don't  understand 
that  he  needs  excitement  to  develop  his 
talent.  He  is  very  fond  of  scenes 
which — " 

"  Ah  !  I  should  make  him  have  some 
fine  scenes,  that  I  should  ! "  exclaimed 
Madame  Guillaume,  interrupting  her 
daughter.  "How  can  you  have  any 
patience  with  such  a  man  ?  For  one 
thing,  I  don't  like  it  that  he  drinlcs  only 
water.  That  is  not  healthy.  Why  does 
he  show  such  an  aversion  to  looking  at 
women  when  they  are  eating?  What  a 
strange  soi-t  of  man  !  He  must  be  crazy. 
All  that  you  have  told  us  about  him  isn't 
possible.  A  man  cannot  start  out  from 
his  house  without  breathing  a  word  and 
not  come  home  until  ten  days  afterward. 
He  told  you  that  he  had  been  in  Dieppe  to 
paint  the  sea.  Does  the  sea  need  paint- 
ing? It  is  all  humbug  what  he  makes 
you  swallow." 

Augustine  opened  her  mouth  to  defend 
her  husband,  but  Madame  Guillaume 
silenced  her  with  a  wave  of  the  hand,  a 
remnant  of  habit  causing  her  to  obey ; 
and  her  mother  cried  out  in  a  dry  tone  : 

"Well,  don't  talk  to  me  about  that 
man  !  He  has  never  set  foot  inside  a 
church,  except  to  see  you  and  to  marry 
you.  People  without  religion  are  capable 
of  anything.  Did  Guillaume  ever  dream 
of  keeping  a  secret  from  me,  of  going 
three  whole  daj's  without  saying  bo  to 
me,  and  after  that  of  chattering  like  a 
one-eyed  magpie  ?  " 

"  My  dear  mother,  you  judge  these 
clever  people  too  severely.  If  they  had 
just  such  ideas  as  others,  they  would  no 
longer  be  people  of  talent." 

"  Well,  let  the  people  of  talent  keep  to 
themselves  and  not  get  married .  Do  you 
mean  to  tell  me  that  a  man  of  talent  is  to 


make  his  wife  miserable,  and,  because  he 
has  talent,  it  is  to  be  all  right  ?  Talent ! 
talent  !  There  is  not  so  very  much  talent 
in  saying  black  and  white  every  minute 
like  him  ;  in  cutting  off  other  people's 
words ;  in  beating  the  drum  in  one's  own 
house ;  in  never  letting  you  know  what 
foot  you  are  to  dance  on;  in  forcing  a 
woman  not  to  amuse  herself  until  her 
husband  happens  to  be  in  good  spirits, 
and  to  be  sad  as  soon  as  ever  he  is  sad." 

"But,  mother,  it  is  the  characteristic 
of  these  imaginations — " 

"  What  are  these  imaginations  ?  "  re- 
sumed Madame  Guillaume,  again  inter- 
rupting her  daughter.  "  He  has  a  fine 
imagination,  upon  my  word  !  What  kind 
of  a  man  is  it,  that  suddenly,  without 
consulting  his  physician,  takes  the  notion 
into  his  head  to  eat  only  vegetables  ?  If 
it  were  on  account  of  religion,  his  dieting 
might  be  of  some  use  to  him ;  but  he 
hasn't  any  more  religion  than  a  Hugue- 
not. Was  there  ever  a  man  seen  like 
him,  to  love  horses  more  than  he  loves 
his  fellow-beings;  to  have  his  hair  friz- 
zled like  a  heathen's,  to  cover  up  statues 
with  muslin,  to  shut  his  windows  in  broad 
day  so  as  to  work  by  lamplight  ?  I  must 
saj',  if  he  were  not  so  grossly  immoral,  it 
would  be  well  to  put  him  in  the  insane 
asylum.  Consult  Monsieur  Loraux,  the 
vicar  of  Saint  Sulpice  ;  ask  what  he  thinks 
of  it  all,  and  he  will  tell  j'ou  that  j'our 
husband  does  not  act  lilce  a  Christian." 

"Oh,  mother!  can  you  believe — " 

"  Yes,  I  do  believe  it !  You  have  loved 
him,  and  you  don't  notice  these  things. 
But,  soon  after  he  was  married,  I  remem- 
ber meeting  him  in  the  Chanips-Elysees. 
He  was  on  horseback.  Well,  sometimes 
he  would  gallop  as  fast  as  he  could  go, 
and  then  he  would  stop  and  ride  on  at 
a  snail 's-pace.  I  said  to  myself  at  that 
time  :  '  There  is  a  man  who  hasn't  any 
judgment.'  " 

"Ah!"  cried  Monsieur  Guillaume, 
as  he  rubbed  his  hands,  "  how  lucky  it 
was  I  had  your  property  settled  upon 
you  when  you  married  such  an  original 
genius !  " 

When  Augustine  was  imprudent  enough 
to  recount  the  real  grievances  which  she 


HOUSE    OF     THE    TEH  NIS-P  LAYING     CAT. 


323 


had  to  complain  of  against  her  husband, 
the  two  elderly  people  remained  mute  with 
indignation.  The  word  divorce  was  soon 
pronounced  b^'  Madame  Guillaume.  At 
the  word  divorce  the  retired  merchant 
was  waked  up,  as  it  were.  Stimulated 
by  his  love  for  his  daughter,  and  also  by 
the  excitement  a  lawsuit  would  impart  to 
his  uneventful  life.  Father  Guillaume  be- 
gan to  speak.  He  put  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  petition  for  a  divorce,  managed  it, 
almost  did  the  pleading ;  he  offered  his 
daughter  to  pay  all  the  expenses,  to  inter- 
view the  judges,  the  attorneys  and  coun- 
selors— to  move  heaven  and  earth.  Ma- 
dame de  Sommervieux,  in  alarm,  refused 
her  father's  services;  said  that  she  did 
not  want  to  be  separated  from  her  hus- 
band, even  if  she  were  ten  times  more  un- 
happy, and  had  nothing  further  to  tell 
of  her  sorrows.  After  her  parents  had 
overwhelmed  her  with  all  those  mute  and 
comforting  little  attentions  by  which  the 
two  old  people  endeavored  to  indemnify 
her,  but  in  vain,  for  the  pangs  of  her 
heart,  Augustine  went  away  feeling  the 
impossibility  of  obtaining  a  fair  judgment 
of  superior  men  from  weak  minds.  She 
learned  that  a  woman  must  hide  from  all 
the  world,  even  from  her  own  parents, 
misfortunes  that  encounter  sympathy 
with  so  great  difficulty.  The  storms  and 
sufferings  of  the  higher  spheres  are  only 
appreciated  by  the  noble  minds  who  in- 
habit them.  In  everything,  we  can  only 
be  judged  by  our  peers. 

The  poor  Augustine  found  herself  once 
moi^e,  therefore,  in  the  chill  atmosphere 
of  her  home,  and  delivei-ed  up  to  the  hor- 
ror of  her  own  meditations.  Study  was 
nothing  more  to  her,  since  study  had  not 
won  back  her  husband's  heart  for  her. 
Initiated  into  the  secrets  of  these  fierj'- 
souls,  but  deprived  of  their  resources,  she 
participated  strongly  in  their  pains  with- 
out sharing  their  pleasures.  She  had  be- 
come disgusted  with  the  world,  which 
seemed  to  her  mean  and  small  in  presence 
of  the  events  of  passion.  Her  life  was 
indeed  a  failure. 

One  evening  she  was  struck  with  a 
thought  that  came  to  light  up  her  dark 
sorrows  like  a  celestial  sunbeam.     This 


idea  could  only  have  been  favored  bj'  a 
heart  as  pure  and  virtuous  as  was  hers. 
She  resolved  to  call  upon  the  Duchess  of 
Carigliano,  not  to  ask  for  her  husband's 
heart  again,  but  to  be  informed  of  the 
artifices  which  had  robbed  her  of  it ;  to 
interest  this  proud  woman  of  the  world 
in  the  mother  of  her  friend's  children ;  to 
move  her  and  make  her  an  accomplice  of 
her  future  happiness,  as  she  was  the  in- 
strument of  her  present  unhappiness. 
One  day,  therefore,  the  timid  Augustine, 
steeled  with  a  superhuman  courage,  got 
into  her  carriage  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  to  tr^^  to  make  her  way  into  the 
boudoir  of  the  celebrated  coquette,  who 
was  never  visible  before  that  hour.  Ma- 
dame de  Sommervieux  was  not  j-et  ac- 
quainted with  the  antique  and  sumptuous 
mansions  of  the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain. 
As  she  traversed  these  majestic  vestibules, 
these  grand  staircases,  these  immense 
drawing-rooms,  ornamented  with  flowers 
despite  the  inclemency  of  winter,  and 
decorated  with  the  taste  peculiar  to 
women  who  are  born  in  opulence,  or  with 
the  elegant  habits  of  high  life,  Augustine 
felt  a  fearful  sinking  of  her  heart.  She 
envied  the  secrets  of  this  splendor,  of 
which  she  had  never  had  any  idea ;  she 
breathed  an  air  of  grandeur  that  explained 
to  her  the  attraction  this  house  had  for 
her  husband.  When  she  reached  the 
duchess's  smaller  apartments,  she  ex- 
perienced jealousy  and  a  sort  of  despair 
in  her  admiration  Of  the  sumptuous  ar- 
rangement of  the  furniture,  the  draperies, 
and  the  hanging-stuffs.  Disorder  there 
became  graceful,  and  luxury  affected  a 
species  of  disdain  for  wealth.  The  per- 
fumes diffused  through  this  mild  atmos- 
phere flattered  the  sense  of  smell  without 
offending  it.  The  furnishings  of  the 
rooms  were  in  perfect  harmonj^  with  a 
view  through  the  clearest  of  glass  upon 
the  lawns  of  grounds  planted  with  green 
trees.  Everything  was  charming,  and 
the  calculation  in  it  all  was  not  felt.  The 
genius  of  the  mistress  of  the  house  showed 
itself  to  the  full  in  the  drawing-room 
where  Augustine  was  waiting.  She 
sought  to  divine  the  character  of  her 
rival  by  looking  at  the  objects  scattered 


324 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


about ;  but  there  was  something  impene- 
trable in  the  disorder,  as  well  as  in  the 
symmetry,  and  it  was  to  the  simple 
Aug-ustine  a  sealed  letter.  All  that  she 
could  see  there  was  that  the  duchess  was 
a  superior  woman,  as  women  go.  Then  a 
painful  thought  occurred  to  her. 

"Alas  !  is  it  true,"  said  she  to  herself, 
"that  a  loving  and  simple  heart  does  not 
suffice  for  an  artist ;  and,  to  balance  the 
weight  of  these  strong  souls,  must  they 
be  united  to  feminine  souls  whose  power 
is  equal  to  their  own  ?  If  I  had  been 
brought  up  like  this  siren,  our  arms,  at 
least,  would  be  well  matched  in  the  hour 
of  our  strife." 

"  But  lam  not  at  home  !  " 

These  sharp  and  short  words,  though 
pronounced  in  a  low  tone  in  the  adjoining 
boudoir,  were  audible  to  Augustine,  and 
her  heart  beat  more  rapidly. 

"The  lady  is  right  here,"  replied  the 
chamber-maid. 

"You  haven't  anj^  sense.  Let  her 
come  in,  then,"  answered  the  duchess; 
and  her  voice,  becoming  sweeter,  took 
on  the  kindly  accent  of  politeness.  Evi- 
dently, she  was  now  desirous  of  being 
heard. 

Augustine  went  forward  timidly.  In 
the  midst  of  this  bright  boudoir,  she  saw 
the  duchess  reclining  luxuriously  upon  an 
ottoman  of  green  velvet,  placed  in  the 
center  of  a  kind  of  half-circle  formed  by 
the  soft  folds  of  muslin  hung  upon  a 
yellow  background.  •  Ornaments  in  gilt 
bronze,  arranged  with  exquisite  taste, 
raised  still  fui-ther  this  sort  of  dais,  under 
which  the  duchess  was  posed  like  an  an- 
tique statue.  The  dark  color  of  the 
velvet  allowed  her  to  lose  no  means  of 
fascination.  A  twilight,  becoming  to 
her  beauty,  seemed  to  be  rather  a  re- 
flection than  a  light.  Some  rare  flow- 
ers lifted  their  scented  heads  above  the 
richest  of  Sevres  vases.  At  the  moment 
this  picture  was  presented  to  the  aston- 
ished Augustine's  eyes,  she  was  stepping 
so  softly  that  she  managed  to  surprise  a 
glance  from  the  enchanti-ess.  This  glance 
seemed  to  say  to  a  person  whom  the 
painter's  wife  did  not  at  first  percieve  : 
"  Stay  here ;    you    are  going    to  see   a 


pretty  woman,  and  you  will  make  her 
visit  less  tiresome  for  me." 

At  the  sight  of  Augustine,  the  duchess 
rose  and  had  her  sit  down  beside  herself. 

"  To  what  am  I  indebted  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  this  visit,  madame?"  said  she, 
with  a  most  gracious  smile. 

"Why  so  much  falseness?"  thought 
Augustine,  and  she  responded  only  by  an 
inclination  of  her  head. 

This  silence  was  unavoidable.  The 
young  woman  saw  before  her  one  witness 
too  many  to  this  scene.  This  personage 
was,  of  all  the  colonels  in  the  army,  the 
youngest,  the  most  eleg'ant,  and  the  best 
built.  His  half-civilian  dress  showed  off 
the  graces  of  his  person.  His  face,  full  of 
life  and  youth,  and  very  expressive  al- 
ready, was  still  further  enlivened  by  a 
small  mustache,  turned  up  at  the  ends  and 
as  black  as  jet ;  by  a  well-developed  im- 
perial ;  by  side-whiskers  carefuUj'  combed, 
and  by  a  forest  of  black  hair  m  pict- 
uresque confusion.  He  was  toying  with 
a  riding- whip,  manifesting  an  easiness  and 
freedom  that  suited  the  satisfied  look  of 
his  physiognomy,  as  well  as  the  elegance 
of  his  toilet.  The  ribbons  in  his  button- 
hole were  knotted  rather  disdainfully,  and 
he  appeared  much  vamer  of  his  handsome 
figure  than  of  his  bravery.  Augustine 
looked  at  the  Duchess  of  Carigliano  and 
indicated  the  colonel  by  a  glance,  the 
meaning  of  which  was  understsod  at  once. 

"Well,good-by,  D'Aiglcmont;  we  shall 
meet  again  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne." 

These  words  were  spoken  by  the  siren 
as  if  the^^  were  the  result  of  an  agreement 
made  previous  to  Augustine's  arrival ; 
she  accompanied  them  with  a  threatening 
look,  which  the  officer  deserved,  perhaps, 
for  the  admiration  he  showed  in  gazing  at 
the  modest  flower  that  contrasted  so  well 
with  the  haughty  duchess.  The  young- 
fop  bowed  in  silence,  turned  on  the  heels 
of  his  boots,  and  dashed  g-racefully  out 
of  the  boudoir.  Just  at  that  moment, 
Augustine,  watching  her  rival  follow  the 
brilliant  officer  with  her  eyes,  surprised 
in  this  glance  a  sentiment  whose  fleeting 
expressions  are  well-known  to  all  women. 
She  thought,  with  the  deepest  distress, 
that  her  visit  was  destined  to  be  of  no 


HOUSE    OF    THE     TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


325 


avail ;  this  crafty  duchess  was  too  g:i'eedy 
of  homag'e  not  to  liave  a  pitiless  heart. 

"  Madame,"  said  Augustine,  in  a  broken 
voice,  "  the  step  I  am  now  taking-  toward 
you  will  seem  very  strange  to  you ;  but 
despair  has  its  madness,  and  must  render 
everything  excusable.  I  understand  only 
too  well  why  Theodore  prefers  your  house 
to  any  other,  and  why  your  mind  has  so 
much  influence  over  him.  Alas  !  I  have 
merely  to  look  within  myself  to  find  more 
than  sufficient  reasons.  But  I  adore  my 
husband,  madame.  Two  years  of  tears 
have  not  effaced  his  image  from  my  heart, 
although  I  have  lost  his.  In  my  distrac- 
tion, I  have  dared  to  conceive  the  idea  of 
strug-gling  with  you ;  and  I  come  to  you 
to  ask  you  hy  what  means  I  can  triumph 
over  yourself.  Oh,  madame  !  "  cried  the 
young-  woman,  ardently  seizing  upon  the 
hand  of  her  rival,  who  let  her  take  it. 
"I  shall  never  pray  to  God  for  my  own 
happiness  with  as  much  fervor  as  I  will 
implore  Him  for  j'ours,  if  you  will  help 
me  to  reconquer,  I  do  not  say  the  love, 
but  the  friendship  of  Sommervieux.  I 
have  no  further  hope  but  in  you.  Ah  ! 
tell  me,  how  have  you  been  able  to  please 
him,  and  to  make  him  forget  the  early 
days  of — " 

At  these  words,  Augustine,  choking 
with  uncontrollable  sobs,  was  obliged  to 
stop.  Ashamed  of  her  weakness,  she  hid 
her  face  in  her  handkerchief  and  deluged 
it  with  her  tears. 

"  What  a  child  you  are,  my  dear  little 
beauty  !  "  said  the  duchess,  who,  charmed 
bj'  the  novelty  of  this  scene,  and  moved, 
despite  herself,  by  receiving-  the  homage 
done  her  by  the  most  perfect  virtue  per- 
haps in  Paris,  took  the  young-  wife's  hand- 
kerchief and  herself  began  to  Avipe  the 
weeping-  ej^es,  soothing  her  with  a  few 
monosjdlables   murmured  with  gracious 

pity- 
After  a  moment's  silence,  the  coquette, 
imprisoningpoor  Aug-ustine's  pretty  hands 
between  her  own,  which  had  a  rare  char- 
acter of  noble  beauty  and  power,  said  to 
her  in  a  sweet  and  affectionate  voice : 

"  As  a  first  piece  of  advice,  I  will  coun- 
sel you  not  to  cry  so;  tears  spoil  one's 
beaut3\   You  must  set  yourself  resolutely' 


against  such  g-riefs  as  bring-  on  illness,  for 
love  does  not  stay  long  b^^  a  bed  of  pain. 
Melancholy  imparts  in  the  beginning  a 
certain  gi'ace  which  is  pleasing,  but  it 
ends  by  lengthening  out  the  features  and 
withering  the  most  fascinating  of  all  faces. 
Then,  our  tj'rants  have  self-love  enough  to 
want  their  slaves  to  be  always  cheerful." 

"  Ah  !  madame,  my  feelings  do  not  rest 
alone  with  me.  How  can  one,  without 
suffering  a  thousand  deaths,  see  a  face 
wan,  colorless,  and  indifferent  that  was 
once  wont  to  beam  with  love  and  joy  !  I 
cannot  command  my  heart." 

"  So  much  the  worse,  my  dear  beauty ; 
but  I  believe  I  already  know  all  your  storj'. 
To  begin  with,  you  may  rest  assured  that 
if  your  husband  has  been  unfaithful  to  you, 
I  am  not  his  accomplice.  If  I  have  been 
glad  to  see  him  in  my  drawing-room,  it 
was,  I  will  confess,  from  a  sort  of  vanity ; 
he  was  famous  and  went  nowhere.  I  like 
you  too  much  already  to  tell  you  all  the 
follies  he  has  committed  on  my  account. 
I  shall  reveal  to  you  only  a  single  one,  be- 
cause it  may,  perhaps,  help  vis  to  bring 
him  back  to  you,  and  to  punish  him  for 
the  audacity  he  has  shown  toward  me. 
He  would  compromise  me  in  the  end.  I 
know  too  much  about  the  world,  my  dear, 
to  wish  to  put  myself  at  the  discretion  of 
too  superior  a  man.  You  know  that  we 
must  let  them  pay  court  '_to  us,  but  it  is 
a  mistake  to  marry  them.  We  women 
ought  to  admire  men  of  genius,  to  enjoy 
them  like  a  play,  but  to  live  with  them — 
never  !  Nonsense  !  that  would  be  trying 
to  take  pleasure  in  looking  at  the  machin- 
ery of  tlie  opera  mstead  of  staymg  in 
one's  box  and  enjoying-  from  there  its  bril- 
liant illusions.  But  in  your  case,  my  poor 
cliild,  the  "mischief  is  done,  isn't  it  ?  Well, 
you  must  endeavor  to  take  up  arms  against 
tjTanny." 

"  Ah !  madame,  before  coming  in  here 
and  seeing  you  I  have  learned  to  know 
some  artifices  which  I  did  not  suspect." 

"  Well,  come  and  see  me  occasionally, 
and  it  will  not  be  long  before  j'ou  possess 
the  science  of  these  trifles  which  are  in- 
deed rather  important.  External  things 
are  half  of  life  to  fools ;  and,  as  far  as 
that  goes,  more  than  one  man  of  talent  is 


32C 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


a  fool,  notwithstanding  all  his  intellect. 
But  I  will  wager  that  .you  have  never 
been  able  to  refuse  Theodore  anj'thing." 

"How  can  one,  madame,  refuse  any- 
thing to  the  man  one  loves  ?  " 

"  You  poor  innocent,  I  shall  adore  you 
for  your  simplicity.  You  must  know, 
then,  that  the  more  we  are  in  love,  the 
less  must  we  let  the  man  perceive,  espe- 
cially' a  husband,  the  extent  of  our  pas- 
sion. It  is  the  most  loving  one  that  is 
tyrannized  over,  and,  what  is  worse,  is 
sooner  or  later  deserted." 

"  What,  madame,  must  we  then  dis- 
simulate, calculate,  turn  false,  make  our- 
selves an  artificial  character,  and  that  for 
all  the  time  ?  Oh  !  how  can  people  live 
so?    Can  you?" 

She  hesitated,  and  the  duchess  smiled. 

"My  dear,"  resumed  the  great  lady,  in 
a  grave  voice,  "married  happiness  has 
alwaj'S  been  a  speculation,  an  affair  de- 
manding particular  attention.  If  you 
continue  to  talk  passion  when  I  am  talk- 
ing to  you  about  marriage,  we  shall  not 
understand  one  another  pretty  soon. 
Listen  to  me,"  she  went  on  to  say, 
in  a  confidential  sort  of  tone.  "  I  have 
been  enabled  to  see  some  of  the  famous 
men  of  our  time.  The  married  ones,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  had  wedded  women  of 
no  account.  Well,  these  women  ruled 
them  as  the  emperor  rules  us,  and  were, 
if  not  loved,  at  least  respected  by  them. 
I  am  fond  enough  of  secrets,  especially 
of  those  that  concern  us,  to  have  amused 
myself  in  seeking  the  solution  of  this 
enigma.  Well,  my  angel,  these  good 
women  had  the  talent  to  analyze  the 
character  of  their  husbands.  Without 
being  frightened,  like  you,  by  their  su- 
periorities, thej'  had  adroitly  remarked 
the  qualities  wanting  in  them ;  and 
whether  they  possessed  these  qualities, 
or  merely  feigned  to  have  them,  thej^ 
found  means  to  make  such  a  great  dis- 
play of  them  to  their  husbands'  eyes  that 
they  ended  by  imposing  upon  them. 
Now,  you  must  know,  too,  that  these 
souls  which  appear  so  great  have  all  a 
bit  of  folly  in  them,  and  we  ought  to  be 
able  to  make  the  most  of  it.  Taking  the 
firm  resolution  to  lord  it  over  them,  never 


swerving  from  this  purpose,  shaping  to- 
ward it  all  our  actions,  ideas,  coquetries, 
we  master  these  eminently  capricious 
minds,  Avhich,  by  the  very  mobility  of 
their  thoughts,  furnish  us  with  the  means 
of  influencing  them." 

"Oh,  heavens!"  cried  the  affrighted 
young  woman.  "  So  that  is  life  !  It  is 
a  combat." 

"Where  one  must  always  threaten," 
resumed  the  duchess,  laughingly, ."  our 
power  is  all  artificial;  also  one  must  never 
let  one's  self  be  despised  by  a  man,  for  it 
is  impossible  to  rise  from  such  a  fall  ex- 
cept by  odious  maneuvers.  Come,"  she 
added,  "  I  am  going  to  give  you  the 
means  of  putting  your  husband  in  chains." 

She  rose  to  guide  smilingly  the  young 
and  innocent  apprentice  in  conjugal  wHes 
through  the  labyrinth  of  her  small  palace. 
They  both  came  to  a  private  staircase 
leading  to  the  reception-rooms.  When 
the  duchess  had  opened  the  spring  of  the 
door,  she  stopped,  looked  at  Augustine 
with  an  inimitable  air  of  slyness  and 
grace. 

"  There,  the  Duke  of  Carighano  adores 
me,  yet  he  dares  not  enter  by  this  door 
without  my  permission — and  he  is  a  man 
who  is  in  the  habit  of  commanding  thou- 
sands of  soldiers.  He  is  equal  to  facing 
batteries,  but  before  me — be  is  afraid." 

Augustine  sighed.  Thej'  reached  a 
sumptuous  gallery,  where  the  painter's 
wife  was  conducted  by  the  duchess  before 
the  portrait  which  Theodore  had  made  of 
Mademoiselle  Guillaume.  At  sight  of  it, 
Augustine  uttered  a  cry. 

"I  knew  very  well  that  it  wasn't  m 
our  house  anymore,"  said  she;  "but — 
here  !  " 

"  My  dear  child,  I  exacted  it  merely'  to 
see  to  what  degree  of  stupidity  a  man  of 
genius  can  go.  Sooner  or  later,  it  would 
have  Ijeen  sent  back  to  j'ou  by  me,  for  I 
was  not  expecting  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
here  the  original  before  the  copy.  While 
we  are  finishing  our  conversation,  I  will 
have  it  taken  to  3'our  carriage.  If,  armed 
with  this  talisman,  you  are  not  mistress 
over  your  husband  for  a  hundred  years, 
you  are  not  a  woman,  and  you  will  de- 
serve vour  fate." 


HOUSE    OF    THE    TENNIS-PLAYING     CAT. 


32' 


Augustine  kissed  the  duchess's  hand, 
and  the  duchess  pressed  her  to  her  heart 
and  kissed  her  with  a  tenderness  all  the 
more  marked  because  it  was  to  be  for- 
gotten on  the  morrow. 

This  scene  would  perhaps  have  forever 
ruined  the  candor  and  purity  of  a  woman 
less  virtuous  than  Augustine,  to  whom 
the  secrets  revealed  by  the  duchess  might 
l^rove  equally  salutary  and  fatal,  for  the 
crafty  policy  of  the  higher  social  spheres 
was  no  more  suited  to  Augustine  than 
was  Josej^h  Lebas's  narrow  reason  or 
Madame  Guillaume's  silly  morality.  A 
strange  effect  of  the  false  positions  where 
the  least  misconstructions  of  life  place  us  I 
Augustine  then  resembled  a  shepherd  of 
the  Alps  surprised  by  an  avalanche  ;  if  he 
hesitates,  or  if  he  stops  to  listen  to  his 
companion's  cries,  he  is  most  frequently 
lost.  In  these  great  crises  the  heart 
breaks,  or  turns  to  stone. 

Madame  de  Sommervieux  went  home  in 
a  state  of  agitation  that  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  describe.  Her  conversation  with 
the  Duchess  of  Carigliano  awakened  a 
throng  of  contradictory  ideas  in  her  mind. 
She  was  like  the  sheep  in  the  fable— full 
of  courage  in  the  absence  of  the  wolf.  She 
harangued  herself  and  traced  out  admir- 
able plans  of  conduct ;  she  imagined  a 
thousand  stratagems  in  coquetry ;  she 
even  talked  to  her  husband,  finding,  far 
away  fi'om  him,  all  the  resources  of  that 
true  eloquence  which  never  abandons  wo- 
men ;  then,  in  thinking  of  Theodore's 
sharp  and  clear  glance,  she  began  to 
tremble.  When  she  inquired  if  her  hus- 
band were  at  home,  her  voice  failed  her. 
Learning  that  he  was  not  coming  to  din- 
ner, she  felt  a  tinge  of  inexplicable  joy. 
Like  the  criminal  appealing  ag-ainst  his 
sentence  of  death,  a  respite,  however 
short  it  might  be,  seemed  to  her  a  whole 
life.  She  placed  the  portrait  in  her  cham- 
ber, and  waited  for  her  husband,  giving 
herself  up  to  all  the  pangs  of  hope.  She 
was  too  well  aware  that  this  experiment 
was  to  decide  her  entire  future  not  to 
shudder  at  every  sort  of  noise,  even  at 
the  murmur  of  her  clock,  which  seemed 
to  weigh  upon  her  teri'ors  by  measuring 
them  to  her.    She  endeavored  to  cheat 


time  by  a  thousand  artifices.  She  was 
seized  with  the  idea  of  making  a  toilet 
that  might  render  her  similar  to  the  por- 
trait in  every  particular.  Then,  knowing 
her  husband's  restless  character,  she  had 
her  apartment  lighted  up.  in  an  unusual 
manner,  certain  that  on  coming  home 
curiositj'  would  bring  him  to  her.  It 
struck  midnight,  when,  at  the  coach- 
man's cry,  the  door  of  the  house  was 
opened.  The  painter's  carriage  rolled  in 
on  the  pavement  of  the  silent  courtyard. 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  illumina- 
tion ?  "  asked  Theodore,  in  a  joyous  voice, 
as  he  entered  his  wife's  chamber. 

Augustine  skillfully  took  advantage  of 
so  favorable  a  moment ;  she  fell  upon  her 
husband's  neck,  and  pointed  out  the  por- 
trait to  him.  The  artist  remained  as 
motionless  as  a  rock,  and  his  eyes  were 
directed  alternately  toward  Augustine 
and  toward  the  accusing  canvas.  The 
timid  and  half-dead  wife  watched  the 
changing  brow — her  husband's  terrible 
brow — and  saw  the  expressive  -mnnkles 
gi'adually  accumulate  on  it  like  clouds ; 
then  she  thought  she  felt  the  blood  curd- 
ling in  her  veins  when,  b3'  a  blazing  glance 
and  a  profoundly  hollow  voice,  she  was 
questioned. 

"  Where  did  you  find  this  picture  ?  " 

"  The  Duchess  of  Carigliano  gave  it  to 
me." 

"  Did  j^ou  ask  her  for  it  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  she  had  it." 

The  sweetness,  or  rather  the  enchant- 
ing melody,  of  this  angel's  voice  might 
have  softened  cannibals,  but  not  an  artist 
writhing  with  the  torture  of  his  wounded 
vanity. 

"That  is  worthy  of  her!"  exclaimed 
the  artist,  in  thundering  tones.  "  I  shall 
have  my  revenge,"  he  said,  as  he  strode 
about.  "  She  shall  die  of  shame.  I  will 
paint  her  !  yes,  I  will  picture  her  with  the 
features  of  Messalina  stealing  out  in  the 
night  from  the  palace  of  Claudius." 

"  Theodore !  "  said  a  dying  voice. 

"I  will  kill  her." 

"My  dear!" 

"  She  is  in  love  with  that  little  cavalry 
colonel,  because  he  rides  horeeback  so 
well." 


328 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Theodore !  " 

"Oh,  let  me  alone  !  "  said  the  painter 
to  his  wife,  with  a  sound  of  voice  that 
almost  resembled  the  roar  of  a  wild 
beast. 

It  would  be  odious  to  paint  this  whole 
scene,  at  the  end  of  which  the  fury  of 
wratii  suggested  to  the  artist  words  and 
acts  that  an  older  woman  than  Augustine 
would  have  attributed  to  insanit3^ 

Toward  eight  o'clock  on  the  morning 
of  the  next  day,  Madame  Guillaume  sur- 
prised her  daughter,  pale,  with  red  eyes, 
hair  in  disorder,  holding  in  her  hand  a 
handlverchief  soalied  with  tears,  gazing 
on  tlie  floor  at  the  scattered  fragments 
of  a  torn  canvas  and  tlie  pieces  of  a  great 
shattered  gilt  frame.  Augustine,  nearly 
insensible  from  grief,  pointed  at  these  re- 
mains with  a  gesture  of  despair. 

"  And  there  perhaps  is  a  great  loss  !  " 
cried  the  old  regent  of  the  Tennis-Play- 
ing Cat.  "  It  was  a  good  likeness,  that 
is  true ;  but  I  have  learned  tliat  there  is 
on  the  Boulevard  a  man  who  makes 
charming  portraits  for  fifty  crowns." 

"Ah,  mother!" 

"Poor  child,  j'ou  are  right!"  replied 
Madame  Guillaume,  who  mistook  the  ex- 
pression of  the  glance  her  daughter  gave 
her.  "  Well,  my  dear,  there  is  no  such 
tender  love  as  a  mother's.     My  darling,  I 


can  guess  everything ;  but  come  and  con- 
fide your  griefs  to  me — I  will  comfort  you. 
Haven't  I  already  told  you  that  that  man 
is  crazy  ?  Your  chambermaid  has  related 
some  pretty  stories  to  me  ;  indeed  he  is  a 
real  monster! " 

Augustine  laid  a  finger  upon  her  pallid 
lips,  as  if  to  imijlore  her  mother  for  a  mo- 
ment's silence.  During  this  terrible  niglit, 
miser3'  had  made  her  find  that  patient 
resignation  which,  in  mothers  and  in  lov- 
ing women,  surpasses  in  its  effects  human 
energy,  and  perhaps  reveals  in  the  heart 
of  women  the  existence  of  certain  strings 
that  God  has  refused  to  man. 

An  inscription  engraved  upon  a  cippus 
in  the  cemetery  of  Montmartre  indicates 
that  Madame  de  Sommervieux  died  at  the 
age  of  twenty-seven.  In  the  simple  lines 
of  this  epitaph  a  friend  to  this  timid  creat- 
ure sees  the  last  act  of  a  drama.  Every 
year,  on  the  solemn  second  of  November, 
he  never  passes  by  this  marble  without 
asking  himself  whether  stronger  women 
are  not  needed  than  was  Augustine  for 
the  powerful  embraces  of  genius. 

"Humble  and  modest  flowers  growing 
up  in  valleys  die,  perchance,"  he  says  to 
himself,  "when  they  are  transplanted  too 
near  the  heavens — the  regions  where  tem- 
pests arise,  where  the  sun  is  scorching." 


VII. 

A  TRAGEDY  BY  THE  SEA. 


The  path  leading  from  Le  Croisic  to 
Batz  town  was  not  a  beaten  way  ;  a  puff 
of  wind  was  enough  to  efface  every  trace 
left  by  the  cart-wheels  or  tlae  print  of 
the  horses'  hoofs.  However,  our  guide's 
practiced  eye  was  able  to  discover  it  by 
the  spoor  of  cattle  and  sheep.  This  path 
in  some  places  went  down  to  the  sea,  and 
in  others  rose  toward  the  fields,  accord- 
ing to  the  lay  of  the  land  and  the  position 
of  the  rocks  which  it  skirted. 

It  was  noon,  and  we  had  only  gone  half- 
way. 


"We  can  rest  over  there,"  I  said, 
pointing  to  a  headland  composed  of  lofty 
rocks.  It  looked  as  if  we  might  find  a 
nook  there. 

When  the  fisherman,  whose  eyes  fol- 
lowed the  direction  of  my  finger,  heard 
this,  he  shook  his  head,  and  said  :  "There 
is  some  one  there.  Every  one  who  goes 
from  Batz  town  to  Le  Croisic,  or  from  Le 
Croisic  to  Batz  town,  always  goes  round 
another  way,  so  as  not  to  pass  him." 

The  man  murmured  these  words  in  a 
low  tone  that  suggested  mystery. 


A     TRAGEDY    Bt    THE    SEA 


329 


"  Is  it  a  robber,  then,  or  a  murderer  ?  " 

Our  guide's  only  answer  was  a  deep, 
hollow  exclamation,  which  redoubled  our 
curiosity. 

"  But  if  we  do  go  \)y,  will  anything:  hap- 
pen to  us  ? " 

"Oh!  no." 

"  Will  you  g-o  by  with  us  ?  " 

"  No,  monsieur." 

"  Well,  we  will  go,  if  you  can  assure  us 
that  there  is  no  danger." 

"I  could  not  say  that,"  answered  the 
fisherman  ciuickh'.  "  I  only  know  that 
he  who  is  there  will  not  say  anything  to 
you,  and  will  do  you  no  harm.  Good 
God  !  only  he  won't  stir  an  inch  from 
where  he  sits." 

"  What  is  he  then  ?  " 

"A  man!  " 

I  never  heard  two  syllables  uttered  in 
such  a  tragic  tone.  At  that  moment  we 
were  about  twenty  paces  from  a  creek  in 
which  the  sea  was  tossing.  Our  guide 
took  the  road  that  skirted  the  i-ocks  ;  we 
Avent  on  straight  in  front  of  us,  but  Pau- 
line took  my  arm.  Our  guide  hastened 
his  steps,  in  order  to  reach  the  place 
where  the  two  paths  met,  at  the  same 
time  that  we  did.  He  evidently  divined 
that  after  we  had  seen  the  man  we  should 
walk  on  quickly.  This  circumstance  in- 
flamed our  curiosity",  which  then  became 
so  burning  that  our  hearts  beat  as  if  we 
had  been  struck  by  a  feeling  of  terror.  In 
spite  of  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  a  sort 
of  fatigue  caused  by  our  walk  through  the 
sands,  our  souls  were  still  filled  with  the 
indescribable  languor  of  intense  delight. 
They  were  full  of  pure  pleasui-e  that  can 
only  be  expressed  by  comparing  it  to  the 
pleasure  one  feels  in  listening  to  exquisite 
music,  such  music  as  the  "  Andiamo  mio 
ben  "  of  Mozart.  The  melting  together 
of  two  hearts  in  one  pure  thought  is  like 
the  blending  of  two  beautiful  voices  in 
song. 

To  be  able  to  appreciate  fully  the  emo- 
tion that  seized  us  afterward,  you  must 
have  shared  the  half  voluptuous  delight 
into  which  our  morning's  ramble  had 
plunged  us.  Sit  for  a  while  and  watch 
a  wood-dove,  with  all  its  beautiful  shades 
of  color,  perched  on  a  branch  that  sways 


above  a  rivulet,  and  you  wUl  cry  aloud 
with  grief  when  you  see  it  struck  to  the 
heart  by  the  iron  claws  of  a  hawk  and 
borne  away  with  speed,  swift  as  powder 
drives  a  bullet  from  a  gun. 

AVe  soon  reached  a  small  cave,  in  front 
of  which  was  a  narrow  ledge,  a  hundred 
feet  above  the  sea,  protected  from  the 
fury  of  the  waves  by  a  sheer  wall  of  rock. 
Before  we  had  gone  two  steps  on  this 
platform,  we  felt  an  electric  shiver  run 
through  us,  not  unlike  the  start  one  gives 
at  a  sudden  noise  in  the  middle  of  a  still 
night. 

We  saw  seated  on  a  piece  of  rock  a  man 
who  looked  at  us. 

His  glance  darted  from  his  bloodshot 
eyes  like  the  flash  of  a  cannon.  The  stoic 
stillness  of  his  limbs  I  can  only  liken  to 
the  unchanging  piles  of  granite  amid 
which  he  sat.  His  whole  body  remained 
rigid,  as  if  he  had  been  turned  into  stone ; 
only  his  eyes  moved  slowly.  After  cast- 
ing upon  us  this  look  which  had  moved 
us  so  strongly,  he  withdrew  his  eyes  and 
fixed  them  on  the  ocean  stretched  out 
at  his  feet.  In  spite  of  the  light  that 
streamed  upward  from  it,  he  gazed  upon 
it  without  lowering  his  eyelids,  as  the 
eagle  is  said  to  gaze  upon  the  sun.  He 
did  not  raise  his  eyes  again.  Try  and 
recall,  my  dear  uncle,  one  of  those  old 
butts  of  oak  that  time  has  stripped  of  all 
its  branches,  whose  knotted  trunk  rears 
its  fantastic  form  by  the  side  of  some 
lonely  road ;  it  will  give  you  a  true 
likeness  of  this  man.  His  was  the  frame 
of  Hercules  in  ruins,  the  face  of  Olympian 
Zeus  wasted  by  age,  and  grief,  and  coarse 
food,  and  the  hard  life  of  them  that  toil 
on  the  sea;  it  was  as  it  were  charred  by 
a  thundeibolt.  I  looked  at  his  hard  and 
hairy  hands,  and  I  saw  the  sinews  like 
bands  of  iron.  In  his  whole  frame  were 
manifest  signs  of  the  same  natural  power. 

In  a  corner  of  the  little  cave  I  noticed 
a  great  heap  of  moss,  and  a  sort  of  rough 
shelf  formed  by  chance  in  the  face  of  the 
granite.  On  this  shelf  stood  an  earthern 
pitcher  covered  with  the  fragment  of  a 
round  loaf.  Never  had  my  imagination 
— when  it  bore  me  into  the  deserts  where 
the  first  Christian  hermits  dwelt — drawn 


330 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


a  picture  of  grander  relig-ion  or  more 
terrible  repentance.  Even  you,  my  dear 
uncle,  who  have  experience  of  the  confes- 
sional, have  never  perhaps  seen  such  noble 
remorse ;  here  was  remorse  drowned  in 
the  waves  of  supplication,  the  perpetual 
supplication  of  dumb  despair. 

This  fisherman,  this  mariner,  this  rough 
Breton  was  sublime  ;  I  knew  it,  but  I 
knew  not  whj'.  Had  those  eyes  wept? 
That  hand,  like  the  hand  of  a  roug-h-hewn 
statue,  liad  it  struck  ?  That  rugged  brow, 
stamped  with  fierce  iiitegritj',  whereon 
strength  had  left  the  impress  of  the  gen- 
tleness that  is  the  heritage  of  all  true 
streng-th — that  brow,  scarred  deep  with 
furrows,  was  it  in  harmou3'  with  a  great 
heart  ?  Why  did  the  man  sit  there  in 
granite  ?  Why  had  the  granite  passed 
into  the  man?  Which  was  humanity, 
which  was  stone  ? 

A  world  of  thought  took  possession  of 
our  brains.  As  our  guide  had  antici- 
pated, we  passed  on  quickly  in  silence. 
When  we  met  he  must  have  seen  that 
we  were  filled  with  horror  and  astonish- 
ment, but  he  did  not  confront  us  with  the 
truth  of  his  predictions  ;  he  only  said — 

"  You  have  seen  him  ?  " 

"  What  is  the  man  ?  "  said  I. 

"  The  people  call  him  '  The  man  under 
a  vow.' " 

You  can  imagine  the  movement  with 
which  our  heads  turned  toward  the  fish- 
erman at  these  words  !  He  was  a  simple 
man ;  be  understood  our  mute  interroga- 
tion, and  this  is  what  he  told  us.  I  tr\' 
to  preserve  his  own  words  and  the  pojiular 
character  of  the  storj'. 

'■'Madame,  people  at  Le  Croisic,  and 
Batz  too,  believe  that  this  man  has  been 
guilty  of  some  crime  and  is  performing 
the  penance  given  him  b3^  a  well-known 
rector  whom  he  went  to  confess  to  be- 
yond Nantes.  Others  believe  that  Cam- 
Ijremer — that  is  his  name — is  under  a 
spell,  and  that  he  communicates  it  to 
any  one  who  passes  him  to  leeward.  For 
this  reason  many  people  look  to  see  in 
what  quarter  the  wind  is  before  they  will 
pass  the  rock.  If  there's  a  gale,"  and  he 
pointed  to  the  northwest,  "  they  would  not 
go  on,  not  if  they  were  going  to  fetch  a 


bit  of  the  true  cross ;  they  are  afraid  and 
turn  back.  Others,  the  rich  people  at  Le 
Croisic,  say  that  Cambremer  has  made 
a  vow,  so  he  is  called  'The  man  under 
a  vow.'  There  he  is  night  and  day;  he 
never  goes.  This  talk  has  a  smack  of 
truth.  Look,"  said  he,  turning  round  to 
point  us  out  a  thing  we  had  not  noticed 
before,  "there,  on  the  left,  he  has  set  up 
a  wooden  cross,  to  show  that  he  is  under 
the  protection  of  God  and  the  Blessed 
Virgin  and  the  Saints.  He  would  not  be 
let  alone  as  he  is,  if  it  were  not  that  the 
terror  he  causes  every  one  makes  him  as 
safe  as  if  he  were  guarded  by  a  regiment 
of  soldiers. 

"He  has  not  spoken  a  word  since  he 
shut  himself  up,  as  it  were,  out  there  in 
the  open.  He  lives  upon  bread  and  water 
which  his  brother's  child,  a  little  wench 
of  twelve  years  old,  takes  him  every 
morning.  He  has  made  a  will  and  left 
her  all  his  goods — a  pretty  creature  she 
is  too,  a  little  slip  of  a  maid,  as  gentle  as 
a  lamb,  and  as  pretty  spoken  as  could  be. 
Her  eyes  are  as  blue — and  as  long  as 
that,"  said  he,  holding  up  his  thumb, 
"  and  her  hair  is  like  a  cherub's.  If  you 
ask  her,  '  Tell  me,  Perotte '  (that's  what 
we  call  Pierrette  ;  she  is  dedicated  to 
Saint  Pierre.  Carabremer's  name  is 
Pierre  ;  he  is  her  godfather) — '  Tell  me, 
Perotte,'  he  went  on,  'what  does  uncle 
say  to  thee  ? '  she'll  answer,  '  He  says 
nothing  to  me,  never — nothing  at  all.' 
'  Well,  and  what  does  he  do  ? '  '  He 
kisses  me  on  the  forehead,  on  Sundays.' 
'  Thou'rt  not  afraid,  then  ?  '  '  Why  ! ' 
she  says,  'he  is  my  godfather  !  He  won't 
let  any  one  else  take  him  his  food  but 
me.' 

"  Perotte  declares  that  he  smiles  when 
she  comes,  but  you  might  as  well  talk  of 
a  sunbeam  in  a  sea-fog,  for  it's  said  he's 
as  gloomy  as  storm." 

"But,"  said  I,  "you  are  exciting  our 
curiosity',  not  satisfying  it.  Do  you  know 
what  it  was  that  brought  him  to  this  ? 
Was  it  grief  ?  or  repentance  ?  or  mad- 
ness ?  or  crime  ?  is  he —  ?  " 

"Ah,  monsieur,  scarcely  any  one  but 
I  and  my  father  know  the  truth  about  it. 
My  mother,  who  is  now  dead,  was  ser\'ant 


A     TRAGEDY    BY    THE    SEA. 


331 


to  the  justice  to  whom  Cambremer  told 
the  whole  story.  The  people  at  the  port 
say  that  the  priest  to  whom  he  made  his 
confession  only  gave  him  absolution  on 
that  condition.  My  poor  mother  over- 
heard Cambremer  w'ithout  intending'  to, 
because  the  justice's  parlor  was  next  the 
kitchen.  She  heard  it,  and  she  is  dead ; 
and  the  judge  who  heard  it,  he  too  is  dead. 
My  mother  made  us  promise — father  and 
me — never  to  speak  of  it  to  the  people 
about  here  ;  but  I  can  tell  you  this  :  the 
evening  my  mother  told  us  the  story  the 
hairs  of  my  head  stood  on  end." 

"  Well,  tell  us  the  story,  my  good  fel- 
lov/ ;  we  will  not  mention  it  to  any  one." 

The  fisherman  looked  at  us  and  con- 
tinued thus  :  "  Pierre  Cambremer,  whom 
3'ou  saw  there,  is  the  eldest  of  the  Cam- 
bremers.  They  have  all  been  seafarers, 
fathers  and  sons,  for  generations.  As 
their  name  shows,  the  sea  has  ahvaj's 
given  way  to  them.  The  one  you  have 
seen  was  a  fisherman,  with  craft  of  his 
own ;  he  had  boats  in  which  he  used  to 
go  sardine  fishing,  and  he  even  fished  for 
deep  sea  fish  for  the  dealers.  He  would 
have  fitted  out  a  ship  and  fished  for  cod, 
if  he  had  not  loved  his  wife  so  much.  She 
was  a  beautiful  woman,  a  Brouin  from 
Guerande — splendid  she  was — and  a  kmd 
heart  too.  She  was  so  fond  of  her  hus- 
band that  she  could  never  bear  him  to 
leave  her  longer  than  was  necessarj'  for 
the  sardine  fishing.  Stop  !  They  lived 
down  there — there,"  said  the  fisherman, 
going  up  on  a  mound,  in  order  to  point 
out  an  island  in  a  sort  of  little  mediter- 
ranean between  the  dunes  on  which  we 
were  walking  and  the  salt  marshes  of 
Guerande.  "Do  you  see  that  house? 
That  was  his  house.  Jacquette  Brouin 
and  Cambremer  had  only  one  child,  a 
boy,  whom  they  loved — how  much  shall 
I  say  ? — like  an  only  child ;  fhey  were 
quite  mad  about  him.  How  often  we 
used  to  see  them  at  the  fair  buying  him 
all  the  finest  toys  !  It  was  a  folly,  every 
one  told  them  so.  Little  Cambremer  soon 
saw  he  could  do  anji:hing  he  liked,  and 
grew  up  as  vicious  as  a  red  ass.  If  any 
one  came  to  his  father  and  said,  •  Your 
son  has  almost  killed  little  So-and-so ! ' 


he'd  only  laugh  jind  say,  '  Bah,  he'll 
make  a  fine  sailor  !  he'll  command  the 
king's  fleet  one  day.'  Or  another  would 
say,  '  Pierre  Cambremer,  do  you  know 
that  your  lad  has  put  out  Pougaud's 
little  girl's  eye  ? '  '  There'll  be  a  lad  for 
the  girls ! '  said  Pierre.  Nothing  was 
wrong  with  him.  Then  at  ten  years 
old  the  3'oung  whelp  would  fight  every 
one  he  met ;  he'd  wring  the  fowls'  necks 
and  kill  the  pigs  for  sport.  I"ll  swear  he 
wallowed  in  blood  like  a  pole-cat !  '  He'll 
make  a  splendid  soldier,'  said  Cambre- 
mer;  "he  has  got  a  taste  for  blood.' 

"  You  see,  I  remembered  all  this  after- 
ward," said  the  fisherman.  "And  so 
did  Cambremer,"  he  added  after  a  pause. 

"  By  the  time  Jacques  Cambremer  was 
fifteen  or  sixteen  he  was — well !  a  perfect 
shark.  He  used  to  go  and  plaj'  the  fool 
and  kick  up  his  heels  at  Guerande  and 
Savenay.  Next  he  wanted  coin ;  so  he 
set  to  robbing  his  mother,  and  she  didn't 
dai'e  to  say  a  word  of  it  to  her  husband. 
Cambremer  was  an  honest  man ;  if  a 
man  had  given  him  two  sous  too  much 
on  a  bill,  he  would  go  twenty  leagues  to 
return  them. 

"  At  la.st,  one  day  his  mother  was 
plundered  of  ever^^thing  while  his  father 
was  away  fishing ;  their  son  carried  off 
the  dresser,  the  crockery,  the  sheets,  the 
linen  ;  he  left  nothing  but  the  four  walls. 
He  sold  the  whole  of  it  to  go  on  the  spree 
with  to  Nantes.  The  poor  woman  cried 
over  it  for  days  and  nights.  His  father 
would  have  to  be  told  when  he  came  back, 
and  she  was  afraid  of  his  father — not  for 
herself — you  may  be  sure  !  When  Pierre 
Cambremer  came  back  and  saw  his  house 
furnished  with  things  lent  to  his  wife,  he 
said,  'What  in  the  world  is  all  this?' 
His  poor  ■wife  was  more  dead  than  alive. 
At  last  she  said,  'We  have  been  robbed.' 
'  And  wiiere's  Jacques  ?  '  '  Jacques  is 
away  on  the  spree.'  No  one  knew  where 
the  good-for-nothing  fellow  had  gone. 
'  He's  too  fond  of  his  larks,'  said  Pierre. 

"Six  months  afterward  the  poor  father 
heard  that  his  son  was  going  to  be  taken 
before  the  justice  at  Nantes.  He  jour- 
neyed there  on  foot  (it's  quicker  than  by 
sea),  laid  hands  on  his  son,  and  brought 


333 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


him  back.  Ho  dithi't  ask  him,  '  What 
have  j-ou  been  doing'  ?  '  He  only  said,  '  If 
thou  dost  not  stay  here  for  two  years  with 
thy  mother  and  me,  and  keep  straight, 
and  go  fishing  and  Uve  like  an  honest 
man,  thou 'It  have  me  to  deal  with.'  The 
mad  fellow,  counting  on  his  parent's  folly, 
made  an  ugly  face  at  his  father.  There- 
upon Pierre  gave  him  a  cuff  on  the  side 
of  his  head  that  laid  up  Master  Jacques 
for  sLx  months.  Meanwhile  the  poor  mo- 
ther was  pining  away  with  grief. 

"  One  night  she  was  sleeping  peacefully 
beside  her  husband  when  she  heard  a 
noise ;  she  raised  herself  in  bed,  and  got 
a  blow  from  a  knife  in  her  arm.  Slie 
cried  out ;  they  brought  a  light,  and 
Pierre  Cambremer  saw  that  his  wife  was 
wounded.  He  believed  it  to  be  the  blow 
of  a  robber— as  if  there  were  any  robbers 
in  our  parts  !  Why,  you  might  carry  ten 
thousand  francs  in  gold  from  Le  Croisic 
to  Saint-Nazare  under  your  arm,  and  no 
fear  of  any  one  even  asking  you  what 
you  had  there.  Pierre  went  to  look  for 
Jacques,  but  couldn't  find  him  anywhere. 
The  next  morning-  the  villain  actually  had 
the  face  to  come  back  and  say  that  he 
had  been  at  Batz.  I  ought  to  tell  j'ou 
that  his  mother  did  not  know  where  to 
hide  her  money ;  Cambremer  placed  his 
with  Monsieur  Dupolet  at  Croisic.  Their 
son's  pranks  had  cost  them  pounds  upon 
pounds  ;  they  were  half  ruined  ;  it  was  a 
hard  thing  for  people  who  had  about 
twelve  thousand  livres  altogether,  count- 
ing- their  little  island.  No  one  knows 
how  much  Cambremer  had  to  give  at 
Nantes  to  get  his  son  off.  The  whole 
family  was  in  bad  luck.  Cambremer's 
brother  had  met  with  misfortunes  and 
wanted  help.  To  console  him  Pierre  told 
him  that  Jacques  should  marry  Perotte 
(the  younger  Cambremer's  child).  Then, 
to  hell)  iiiii  to  gain  a  living  he  employed 
him  at  his  fishing,  for  Joseph  Cambremer 
was  reducetl  to  work  for  his  bread.  His 
wife  had  died  of  fever,  so  he  had  to  pay 
for  the  months  of  Perotte's  weaning. 
Pierre  Cambremer's  Avife  too  owed  as 
much  as  a  hundred  francs  to  different 
people,  for  the  little  one,  for  linen  and 
clothes,   and  for  two   or  three  months' 


wages  to  big  Frelu,  who  nursed  Perotte. 
Well,  Cambremer's  wife  had  sewn  a 
Spanish  coin  into  the  wool  of  her  mat- 
tress, with  '  For  Perotte  '  written  on  it. 
She  had  had  a  fine  education,  and  could 
write  like  a  clerk ;  she  had  taught  her  son 
to  read  ;  it  was  that  was  the  ruin  of  him. 
No  one  knows  how  it  was,  but  that  good- 
for-nothing  Jacques  had  sniffed  gold ;  he 
had  taken  it  and  gone  to  run  riot  at  Le 
Croisic.  The  good  man  Cambremer — as 
ill-luck  would  have  it — came  home  with 
his  boat,  and  as  he  was  landing  he  saw  a 
bit  of  paper  floating  on  the  water;  he 
picked  it  up  and  took  it  to  his  wife ;  she  rec- 
ognized the  words  in  her  own  writing,  and 
fell  down  on  the  floor.  Cambremer  said 
nothing,  went  to  Le  Croisic,  and  heard 
there  that  his  son  was  playing  billiards  ; 
then  he  asked  to  see  the  woman  that  kept 
the  cafe,  and  said  to  her,  'Jacques  will 
pay  3^ou  with  a  certain  gold  piece  which  I 
told  him  not  to  pa}'  awaj' ;  if  you  will  re- 
turn it  to  me  I  will  Avait  at  the  door  and 
give  3'ou  silver  for  it  instead.'  The  good 
woman  brought  him  the  coin.  Cambremer 
took  it.  'Good,'  said  he,  and  returned 
home.  The  whole  town  knew  that  much. 
But  this  is  what  I  know,  and  the  rest  can 
only  just  guess  at.  He  told  his  wife  to 
set  their  downstair  room  in  order ;  he 
made  a  fire  in  the  grate,  lighted  two  dips, 
and  set  two  chairs  on  one  side  of  the 
hearth  and  a  stool  on  the  other.  Then  he 
told  his  wife  to  lay  out  his  wedding  clothes, 
and  bade  her  rig  herself  out  in  hers.  He 
put  on  his  clothes,  and  whenhe  was  dressed 
he  Avcnt  for  his  brother  and  told  him  to 
keep  watch  outside  the  house,  and  warn 
him  if  he  heard  anj^  sound  on  either  of  the 
two  beaches — this  one  and  the  one  by  the 
marsh  de  Guerande.  When  he  thoug-ht 
his  wife  had  dressed  herself,  he  went  in 
again,  loaded  his  gun,  and  hid  it  in  the 
chimney-corner.  Presently  Jacques  came 
home  ;  he  was  late ;  he  had  been  drinking 
and  gambling  till  ten  o'clock ;  he  had  got 
brought  aci-oss  at  Carnouf  Point.  His 
uncle  heard  him  shouting  on  the  beach  by 
the  marshes  and  went  to  fetch  him,  and 
brought  him  over  without  saying  any- 
thing. When  he  came  in,  his  father 
points  to  the  stool  and  saj's,  'Sit  down 


A     TRAGEDY    BY    THE    SEA. 


333 


there.  Thou  art  before  thy  father  and 
mother  whom  thou  hast  offended  ;  they 
must  be  thy  judg-es.'  Jacques  beg'an  to 
howl,  because  Cambremcr's  face  had  a 
strang-e  set  look.  His  mother  sat  as  stiff 
as  an  oar.  '  If  thou  dost  cry  or  budge  an 
inch,  if  thou  dost  not  sit  there  as  straight 
as  a  mast  on  thy  stool,'  said  Pierre,  tak- 
ing aim  at  his  son  with  his  gun,  '  I'll  kill 
thee  like  a  dog.'  The  son  became  as 
dumb  as  a  fish  ;  the  mother  said  no  word. 
'  Look  here,'  said  Pierre  to  his  son ;  '  here 
is  a  piece  of  paper  which  has  been  used  to 
wrap  up  a  Spanish  gold  piece  in  ;  the  gold 
piece  was  in  thy  mother's  bed  ;  thy  mother 
was  the  only  person  who  knew  where  she 
had  put  it;  I  found  the  i^aper  floating  on 
the  water  when  I  landed  ;  thou  hast  just 
given— this  very  evening — this  Spanish 
gold  piece  to  la  mere  Fleurant,  an(t  thj' 
mother  cannot  find  her  piece,  in  the  bed. 
Explain.'  Jacques  said  that  he  had  not 
taken  his  mother's  piece,  and  that  his 
piece  he  had  by  him,  left  over  from  Nan- 
.tes.  'So  much  the  better,'  said  Pierre. 
'  How  canst  thou  prove  that  to  us ?  '  'I 
had  it.'  'Thou  didst  not  take  thy  mo- 
ther's ?  '  '  No. '  '  Canst  thou  swear  it  on 
thy  eternal  salvation  ? '  He  was  going  to 
swear;  his  mother  raised  her  eyes  and 
looked  at  him  and  said,  '  Jacques,  my 
child,  take  care  ;  do  not  swear  what  is  not 
true;  thou  canst  amend,  and  repent; 
there  is  still  time.'  She  wept.  'You're 
a  nice  one,'  said  he;  'you  have  always 
tried  to  get  me  into  scrapes.'  Cambremcr 
turned  pale.  '  What  thou  hast  just  said 
to  thy  mother  will  make  thy  account  all 
the  heavier.  Let's  come  to  the  point ! 
Art  going  to  swear?'  'Yes.'  'Wait  a 
minute,'  said  he.  '  Had  thy  coin  got  this 
cross  on  it  that  the  sardine  merchant  put 
on  ours  when  he  gave  it  us  ?  '  Jacques 
was  getting  sober;  he  began  to  cry. — 
'We've  talked  enough,'  said  Pierre;  'I 
am  not  going  to  say  anj^thing  about  what 
thou  hast  done  before,  but  I  don't  choose 
that  a  Cambremer  should  die  in  the 
market-place  at  Le  Croisic.  Say  thj' 
prayers,  and  let's  make  haste.  There's 
a  priest  coming  in  a  minute  to  hear  thy 
confession.'  His  mother  had  gone  out; 
she  could  not  stay  to  hear  her  son  con- 


demned. When  she  was  gone,  Cam- 
bremer, the  uncle,  came  with  the  rec- 
tor of  Piriac ;  but  Jacques  would  have 
nothing  to  say  to  him.  He  was  a  cun- 
ning one;  he  knew  his  father  well 
enough  to  be  sure  he  would  not  kill 
him  without  confession.  'Thank  j'ou, 
monsieur,'  said  Cambremer,  seeing  that 
Jacques  was  obstinate,  '  please  to  excuse 
us,  but  I  wanted  to  give  vay  son  a  lesson ; 
I  beg  you  not  to  say  anj'thing  about  it. 
As  to  thee,'  he  said  to  Jacques,  'if  thou 
dost  not  mind — the  first  time  it'll  be  for 
good  and  all.  I  shall  put  an  end  to  it 
without  confession.'  He  sent  him  to  bed. 
The  lad  believed  this,  and  imagined  that 
he  would  be  able  to  set  himself  to  riglits 
with  his  father.  He  slept ;  the  father 
watched .  When  he  saw  that  his  son  was 
in  a  deep  sleep,  he  covered  his  mouth  with 
tow,  bound  it  round  tightly  with  a  piece 
of  a  sail,  and  then  tied  his  hands  and  feet. 
He  raved,  'he  wept  blood, 'as  Cambremer 
told  the  justice.  You  may  imagine,  his 
mother  threw  herself  at  his  father's  feet. 
'  He  is  judged,'  said  he ;  '  thou  must  help 
me  to  put  him  into  the  boat.'  She  re- 
fused. Cambremer  put  him  in  bj'  him- 
self, forced  him  down  into  the  bottom  of 
the  boat,  and  tied  a  stone  to  his  neck. 
Then  he  rowed  out  of  the  cove — out  to 
the  open  sea  till  he  was  as  far  out  as  the 
rock  where  ho  now  sits.  By  that  time 
the  poor  mother  had  got  her  brother-in- 
law  to  take  her  out  there.  She  cried  out 
as  loud  as  she  could  '  Mercj-,' but  it  was 
only  like  throwing  a  stone  at  a  wolf.  It 
was  moonlight ;  she  saw  the  father  throw 
their  son,  to  whom  her  bowels  still  yearned, 
into  the  sea  ;  and  as  there  was  no  wind 
she  heard  Pish  !  then  nothing,  not  a  trace, 
not  a  bubble.  No,  the  sea  doesn't  tell 
secrets.  Cambremer  landed  to  quiet  his 
wife's  groans,  and  found  her  half  dead. 
It  was  impossible  for  the  two  brothei-s  to 
carrj'  her ;  they  were  obliged  to  put  her 
in  the  boat  which  had  just  been  used  for 
her  son,  and  rowed  her  round  by  the 
Le  Croisic  channel.  Ah,  well !  la  belle 
Brouin,  as  she  was  called,  did  not  last  a 
week ;  she  died  entreating  her  husband  to 
burn  the  cursed  boat.  Oh  !  he  did  it  too. 
As  for  him,  it  was  all  up  with  him ;  he 


334 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


didn't  know  what  he  wanted.  When  he 
walked,  he  staggered  hke  a  man  who 
couldn't  stand  wine.  Then  he  took  a  ten 
days'  journey,  and  when  he  came  back, 
sat  down  where  you  have  seen  him,  and 
since  he  has  been  there  he  hasn't  spoken 
a  word." 

The  fisherman  did  not  take  more  than 
a  minute  or  two  to  tell  us  this  stoi-y,  and 
told  it  even  moi-e  simply  than  I  have  writ- 
ten it.  The  people  make  few  reflections 
when  they  tell  a  tale ;  fhey  relate  the 
fact  that  has  impressed  them,  and  only 
translate  it  into  words  as  they  feel  it. 
Tliis  narative  was  as  keen  and  incisive  as 
th^  blow  of  a  hatchet. 

We  returned  to  Le  Croisic  bj'  the  salt 
marshes.  Our  fisherman,  become  as 
silent  as  ourselves,  led  us  through  the 
bewildering  paths.  Our  souls  hud  under- 
gone a  change.  We  were  both  plunged 
in  gloomy  thoughts,  saddened  \)y  this 
drama  which  explained  the  sudden  pre- 
sentiment we  had  felt  at  the  sight  of  Cam- 
bremer.  We  both  knew  enough  of  the 
•world  to  divine  that  part  of  those  three 
lives  concerning  which  our  guide  had  been 
silent. 

The  miseries  of  the  three  rose  up  be- 
fore us  as  plainly  as  if  we  had  seen  them 
in  the  scenes  of  a  drama  that  reached  its 
climax  in  the  father's  expiation  of  his 
necessary  crime.  We  dared  not  look  at 
the  rock  where  the  unhappy  man  sat,  a 
terror  to  the  whole  country.  Clouds  be- 
gan to  darken  the  sky,  and  a  mist  i-ose  on 
the  horizon  while  we  walked  through  the 
most  gloomy  and  melancholy  scenery  I 
ever  beheld.  We  trod  on  soil  that  seemed 
sick  and  unwholesome,  the  salt  marshes, 
that  may  well  be  called  the  scrofulous 
places  of  the  earth.  The  ground  is 
divided    into   unequal   squares,  each    in- 


cased in  a  deep  cutting  of  gray  earth,  and 
each  full  of  brackish  water,  on  the  sur- 
face of  which  the  salt  collects.  These 
artificial  pits  are  divided  witliin  by  bor- 
ders, whereon  the  workmen  walk  armed 
with  long  rakes.  By  the  aid  of  these 
rakes  they  skim  off  the  brine  and  carry 
it  to  round  platforms  contrived  at  certain 
distances,  when  it  is  ready  to  be  formed 
into  heaps.  For  two  hours  we  walked  by 
the  side  of  this  gloomy  chess-board,  where 
the  abundance  of  salt  chokes  all  vegeta- 
tion, and  where  no  one  is  to  be  seen,  except 
her-e  and  there  a  few  paludiers — the  name 
given  to  the  cultivators  of  the  salt.  These 
men,  or  rather  this  class  of  Bretons,  wear 
a  special  dress,  a  white  jacket,  not  unlike 
a  brewer's.  They  marrj'  only  among 
themselves ;  there  is  no  instance  of  a 
gill  •  of  this  tribe  having  married  any 
other  man  than  a  paludier.  The  hoi"- 
rible  ajipea  ranee  of  these  swamps,  with 
the  mud  thus  raked  in  regular  patches, 
and  the  gray  earth  shunned  by  every 
Breton  flower,  was  in  harmony  with  the 
pall  that  had  been  cast  upon  our  souls. 
When  we  reached  the  place  where  one 
has  to  cross  the  arm  of  the  sea  formed 
by  the  irruption  of  its  waters  into  this 
basin  and  no  doubt  serving  to  replenish 
the  salt  marshes,  the  sight  of  even  such 
meager  vegetation  as  adorns  the  sands  on 
the  beach  was  a  delight  to  us.  As  we 
were  crossing,  we  could  see  in  the  middle 
of  the  lake  the  island  on  which  the  Cam- 
bremers  had  lived.  We  turned  away  our 
heads. 

On  arriving  at  our  hotel  we  noticed  a 
billiard  table  in  one  of  the  ground-floor 
rooms,  and  when  we  learned  that  it  was 
the  only  public  billiard  table  in  Le  Croisic, 
we  made  our  preparations  for  leaving  dur- 
ing the  night.  The  next  day  we  were  at 
Guerande. 


MODESTE    MIQNON. 


335 


VIII. 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


In  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  Oc- 
tober, 1829,  Monsieur  Simon  Babylas  La- 
tournelle,  notary,  was  going  along  the 
road  from  Havre  to  Ingouville,  arm  in 
arm  with  his  son  ;  his  wife  was  also  with 
him,  and  was  followed,  as  by  a  page,  by 
the  head  clerk,  a  little  dwarf  named  Jean 
Butscha.  When  the  four,  of  whom  two 
at  least  passed  over  the  same  road  every 
evening,  reached  a  place  where  the  road 
turned  upon  itself,  in  a  fashion  that  the 
Italians  call  cornice,  the  notary  looked 
carefully  around  him,  on  both  sides,  be- 
fore and  behind,  to  see  whether  any  one 
could  hear  him,  and  then  cautiously  low- 
ered his  voice. 

"  Exupere,"  he  said  to  his  son,  "  I  want 
you  to  try  and  execute  carefully  and  intel- 
ligently a  little  maneuver  which  I  am 
about  to  explain  to  you,  without  trying 
to  understand  what  it  means ;  but  if  you 
happen  to  guess  anything,  throw  the 
knowledge  into  that  Styx  which  should 
be  the  receptacle  of  all  secrets  belonging 
to  another,  in  the  mind  of  every  notary 
and  every  man  who  is  destined  for  the 
magistracy.  After  having  presented  your 
respects  and  duty  to  Madame  and  Made- 
moiselle Mignon,  to  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Dumay,  and  to  Monsieur  Gobenheim  if  he 
is  at  the  Chalet,  Monsieur  Dumny  will 
take  you  aside  into  a  corner  as  soon  as  he 
has  an  opportunity.  You  may  gaze  at  Ma- 
demoiselle Mignon  all  the  time  he  is  talk- 
ing to  you,  if  3'ou  like.  (I  will  permit  it.) 
My  worthy  friend  will  ask  you  to  go  and 
take  a  walk.  Come  back  again  at  nine 
o'clock,  as  if  you  were  in  haste.  When  you 
return  from  the  walk  you  must  tr\'  to  imi- 
tate the  panting  of  a  man  who  is  out  of 


bi'eath,  and  you  must  go  and  whisper  to 
him,  quite  low,  but  in  such  a  way  that 
Mademoiselle  Modesto  can  hear  you  : — 
"The  young  man  is  coming  !  " 

Exupere  was  to  start  for  Paris  the 
next  morning,  to  begin  his  law  studies. 
This  approaching  departure  had  decided 
Latournelle  to  propose  his  son  to  his 
friend  Dumay  as  an  accomplice  in  the 
conspiracy  of  which  this  order  gives  a 
glimpse. 

'•■  Is  Mademoiselle  Modeste  suspected  of 
carr^'ing  on  an  intrigue  ?  "  asked  Butscha, 
timidly. 

"Hush!  Butscha,"  said  Madame  La- 
tournelle, taking  her  husband's  arm. 

Madame  Latournelle,  the  daughter  of 
a  clerk  of  one  of  the  lower  courts,  deemed 
herself  sufficiently  authorized  by  her  birth 
to  call  herself  a  descendant  of  a  parlia- 
mentary familj'.  This  explains  w^hy  the 
woman,  already  too  blotched  and  pim- 
pled, attempted  to  give  herself  the  maj- 
esty of  the  tribunal  whose  judgments 
were  recorded  by  her  father.  She  took 
snuff,  held  herself  as  straight  as  a  stick, 
posed  as  a  distinguished  person,  and  was 
like  a  mummy  who  has  been  momen- 
tarily restored  to  activity  by  the  use  of 
g-alvanism. 

She  attempted  to  give  aristocratic 
tones  to  her  sharp  voice,  but  she  scarcelj' 
succeeded  in  concealing  her  own  want  of 
education.  Her  utility  as  a  member  of 
society  was  demonstrated  by  the  flower- 
laden  bonnets  and  frizzled  curls  which  she 
wore,  and  the  dresses  which  she  chose. 
How  would  merchants  dispose  of  these 
productions  if  there  were  no  Madame  La- 
tournelles  ?  All  the  foibles  of  this  worthy 
woman,  who  was  really  charitable  and 
pious,  might  have  passed  unnoticed  if  it 


336 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


had  not  been  for  the  fact  that  Nature, 
which  sometimes  pleases  itself  b^'  gro- 
tesque creations,  had  endowed  her  with 
the  height  of  a  drum-major,  in  order  to 
make  her  oddities  conspicuous. 

She  had  never  been  away  from  Havre  ; 
she  believed  in  the  infalllbilit3'  of  the 
place ;  she  bought  everything  there, 
even  to  her  dresses.  She  called  herself  a 
Normande  to  the  ends  of  her  fingers,  and 
she  venerated  her  father  and  adored  her 
hiisband.  The  little  Latournelle  had  had 
the  temerity  to  marry  her  after  she  had 
reached  the  age  of  thirty-three,  and  they 
had  had  one  son.  As  Latournelle  might 
have  obtained  almost  anywhere  the  sixty 
thousand  francs  of  dowry  which  had  been 
given  by  the  registry  clerk,  his  remark- 
able intrepidity  was  attributed  to  a  de- 
sire to  escape  the  invasion  of  the  Minotaur, 
which  he  could  have  scarcely  eluded  b3' 
himself,  if  he  had  had  the  imprudence  to 
marry  a  young  and  pretty  girl.  Tlie 
notary  had  good-naturedly  recognized 
the  good  qualities  of  Mademoiselle  Agnes 
(she  was  named  Agnes),  and  had  reflected 
liow  soon  a  woman's  beauty  passes  in  the 
eyes  of  her  husband. 

As  for  the  insignificant  young  man 
upon  whom  the  registrj^  clerk  had  be- 
stowed his  Norman  name  at  baptism, 
Madame  Latournelle  still  felt  such  as- 
tonishment at  having  given  birth  to  a 
son  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  years  and 
seven  months,  that  she  would  have  given 
him  the  milk  fi*om  her  own  breast  even 
now,  if  he  had  wanted  it ;  this  hyperbole 
is  the  onl.y  one  which  can  express  her 
maternal  foolishness.  "  How  beautiful 
my  son  is,"  .she  would  say  to  her  little 
friend  Modeste,  pointing  him  out  when 
they  were  on  the  way  to  mass,  while 
Exupere  Avalked  before  them.  "  He  re- 
sembles you,"  Modeste  Mignou  would 
reply,  in  exactly  the  same  way  in  which 
she  would  have  said:  "What  dreadful 
weather ! " 

The  portrait  of  this  person  will  be 
necessary  before  long,  since  Madame 
Latournelle  had  been  for  three  years  the 
chaperon  of  the  young  girl  for  whose  feet 
the  notarj'  and  Dumay  his  friend  were 
about  to  spread  one  of  those  snares  called, 


in  the  "  Phj'siology  of  Mai-riage,"  mouse- 
traps. 

As  for  Latournelle,  he  was  a  good  little 
man,  as  cunning  as  the  purest  honesty 
would  permit ;  strangers  always  took 
him  for  a  knave  when  they  saw  tlie 
strange  physiognomy  to  which  all  Havre 
was  by  this  time  accustomed.  Some 
trouble  with  his  sight  compelled  the 
worthy  notaiy  to  wear  green  spectacles 
to  help  his  eyes,  which  were  alwaj'S  red. 
Each  arch  of  his  eyebrows,  which  were 
thinly  covered  with  down,  extended  from 
the  brown  frame  of  the  glass,  thus  mak- 
ing a  double  circle.  If  one  has  never 
observed  upon  the  face  of  some  passer-by 
the  effect  jiroduced  by  these  two  parallel 
circumfei'ences,  separated  by  an  empty 
space,  one  cannot  easily  imagine  what  a 
puzzle  such  a  face  is  ;  particularly  when 
it  is  pale  and  hollowed,  and  ends  in  a 
point  like  that  of  Mephistopheles  ;  a  type 
which  painters  have  copied  on  the  masks 
of  cats.  For  that  is  what  Babj'las  Latour- 
nelle resembled. 

Above  these  atrocious  green  spectacles 
rose  a  bald  crown,  all  the  more  artful  in 
appearance  since  the  wig,  apparently  en- 
dowed with  motion,  Avas  indiscreet  enough 
to  permit  ijvhite  hairs  to  escape  on  all 
sides,  as  it  I'csted  unevenly  upon  the  fore- 
head. Knowing  this  estimable  Norman, 
dressed  in  black,  and  mounted  upon  his 
two  legs  like  a  beetle  upon  two  pins,  to 
be  one  of  the  most  honest  men  in  the 
world,  it  was  difficult  to  discover  the 
reason  for  these  contradictions  in  physi- 
ognomy. 

Jean  Butscha,  a  poor  natural  son  who 
had  been  deserted,  and  who  had  been 
taken  and  cared  for  by  the  registry  clerk 
Labrosse  and  his  daughter,  had  become  a 
head  clerk  by  dint  of  industry ;  he  lived 
with  his  patron,  who  gave  him  a  salary'  of 
nine  hundred  francs  ;  he  had  lost  all  sem- 
blance of  youth  ;  he  was  a  dwarf — and  he 
made  an  idol  of  Modeste  ;  he  would  have 
given  his  life  for  her.  This  poor  being, 
whose  round  eyes  were  j^ressed  between 
thick  eyelids,  who  was  pock-marked,  bur- 
dened with  a  shock  of  crisp,  curly  hair, 
and  embarrassed  by  his  enomnous  hands, 
had  met  no  looks  save  those  of  pity  from 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


337 


the  time  he  was  a  child  ;  and  tliis  fact  is 
sufiicient  to  explain  his  whole  character. 
He  was  silent,  reserved,  exemplary  in 
conduct,  and  religious.  He  was  a  traveler 
in  that  immense  extent  of  country  called, 
upon  the  map  of  Tenderness,  '•  Love  with- 
out hope";  and  he  wandered  upon  the 
arid  and  sublime  heig-hts  of  Desire. 

Modeste  had  dubbed  the  grotesque  clerk 
the  ''Mysterious  Dwarf."  This  sobriquet 
caused  Butscha  to  read  Walter  Scott's 
romance,  and  made  him  say  to  Modeste 
one  day  :  "  Will  you  accept,  against  an 
evil  daj',  a  rose  from  j^our  mj-sterious 
dwarf?"  But  Modeste  suddenly  flung 
the  soul  of  her  adorer  back  into  its  dwell- 
ing of  mud  by  one  of  those  terrible  glances 
which  young  girls  know  how  to  bestow 
upon  those  who  do  not  please  them.  But- 
scha himself  had  but  a  lowly  opinion  of 
his  own  merits ;  and  he,  as  well  as  his 
mistress,  had  never  been  out  of  Havre. 

It  may  be  as  well,  in  the  interest  of 
those  who  are  not  acquainted  with  Havre, 
to  say  a  few  words  relating  to  the  des- 
tination of  the  Latournelle  family,  of 
which  the  head  clerk  was  evidently  a 
member.  Ingouville  is  to  Havre  what 
Montmartre  is  to  Paris,  a  high  hill,  at 
the  foot  of  which  the  city  is  spread  out ; 
with  this  difference,  that  the  sea  and  the 
Seine  surround  it ;  that  it  is  hopelessly 
inclosed  by  fortifications,  and  that  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  the  port  and  the  har- 
bor present  a  very  different  sight  from  the 
fifty  thousand  houses  of  Paris.  At  the 
foot  of  Montmartre  an  ocean  of  slate  roofs 
lies  in  motionless  blue  waves;  at  Ingou- 
ville, the  sea  is  like  moving  ropfs,  swaj-ed 
by  the  winds. 

This  line  of  hills,  which,  from  Rouen  to 
the  sea,  bordei'S  the  river,  leaving  a  more 
or  less  restricted  margin  between  itself 
and  the  water,  contains  numberless  pict- 
uresque treasures  in  its  towns,  its  ra- 
vines, its  valleys  and  its  prairies;  it  has 
been  of  immense  value  to  Ingouville  since 
181G,  at  which  time  the  prosperity  of  Havre 
began.  The  place  became  the  Auteuil, 
the  Ville  d'Avray,  the  Montmorency  of 
merchants,  who  built  themselves  villas  on 
the  terraces  of  the  vast  amphitheater, 
where   they   could  breathe  the   sea   air. 


perfumed  with  the  flowers  of  their  mag- 
nificent gardens.  These  bold  speculators 
rested  there  from  the  fatigues  of  their 
counters,  and  from  the  close  atmosphere 
of  the  houses  in  which  they  had  been  liv- 
ing, built  close  against  each  other,  with- 
out space,  sometimes  even  without  a 
courtyard,  as  the  increasing  population 
of  Havre,  the  inflexible  line  of  its  ram- 
parts and  the  growth  of  the  harbor  made 
it  necessary  for  them  to  be  built.  They 
left  sadness  at  Havre,  and  found  303'  at 
Ingouville. 

The  law  of  social  development  gave  a 
mushroom  growth  to  the  faubourg  of 
Graville,  which  is  to-day  larger  than 
Havre  itself,  and  which  winds  down  the 
hill  like  a  serpent.  At  its  crest,  Ingou- 
ville has  only  one  street,  and  the  houses 
which  overlook  the  Seine  necessarily'  have 
an  immense  advantage  over  those  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way,  whose  view  is 
masked  by  them,  but  which  stand  on 
tip-toe,  like  spectators  at  the  play,  in 
order  to  see  over  the  heads  of  those  in 
front.  Nevertheless,  there  exist  there, 
as  everywhere,  gradations  of  i-ank.  A 
few  houses  on  the  summit  have  a  supe- 
rior position,  or  possess  a  right  of  view 
which  forces  their  neighbor  to  keep  his 
building  down  to  a  required  height.  Then 
again,  the  irregular  line  of  rock  is  cut  by 
the  roads  which  make  the  amphitheater 
habitable ;  and  through  these  vistas  some 
of  the  dwellings  have  a  view  of  the  town, 
the  liver,  or  the  sea. 

Although  the  hill  does  not  end  in  a  per- 
pendicular descent,  it  terminates  in  a  suf- 
ficiently abrupt  cliff.  At  the  end  of  the 
road  which  winds  along  the  summit  there 
are  ra\ines  in  which  may  be  seen  a  few  vil- 
lages, Sainte-Adresse  and  two  or  three 
Saints  something  or  other,  and  some 
creeks  where  the  ocean  ebbs  and  flows. 
This  end  of  Ingouville,  which  is  almost 
deserted,  forms  a  striking  contrast  with 
the  beautiful  villas  which  look  out  over 
the  vallej'  of  the  Seine.  Do  the  mer- 
chants fear  the  effects  of  the  wind  upon 
vegetation?  or  do  they  draw  back  before 
the  expense  of  reclaiming  these  steeps? 
Whatever  may  be  the  reason,  the  tourist 
is  surprised  to  see  a  bare  and  ravine-cut 


338 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


coast  at  the  west  of  Ingouville,  like  a 
beg-gar  in  rags  beside  a  richly  dressed, 
perfumed  beautj'. 

In  1839,  one  of  the  last  houses  on  the 
side  of  the  sea,  which  is  doubtless  in  the 
center  of  the  Ingouville  of  to-day,  was, 
and  perhaps  is  still,  called  "t|he  Chalet." 
This  was  originally  a  house  devoted  to  a 
concierge,  with  his  little  garden  before 
it.  The  proprietor  of  the  villa  to  which 
it  belonged,  a  house  with  a  park,  gardens, 
an  aviarj-,  hot-houses  and  lawns,  fancied 
the  idea  of  altering  this  little  house  to 
make  it  in  harmony  with  his  own  dwell- 
ing, and  rebuilt  it  on  the  model  of  a  cot- 
tage. He  separated  this  cottage  from  his 
own  lawn,  with  its  flowers,  its  garden- 
borders  and  terraces,  by  a  low  wall, 
along  which  he  planted  a  hedge  to  con- 
ceal it. 

Behind  this  cottage,  which  Avas,  in  spite 
of  all  his  efforts,  named  the  Chalet,  there 
were  kitchen-gardens  and  orchards.  This 
Chalet,  without  its  cows  or  dairy,  was 
separated  from  the  road  by  a  fence  whose 
palings  were  concealed  by  a  luxuriant 
hedge.  On  the  other  side  of  the  road  the 
opposite  house  had  a  similar  fence  and 
hedge,  which  gave  the  Chalet  a  view  of 
Havre. 

This  little  house  was  the  despair  of 
Monsieur  Vilquin,  the  proprietor  of  the 
villa.  The  creator  of  this  country-seat, 
which  breathed  so  plainly  of  the  wealth 
of  its  owner,  had  extended  his  domains 
inland  in  order,  as  he  himself  said,  to 
avoid  having  his  gardeners  in  his  pockets. 
When  the  Chalet  was  finished,  it  was  fit 
only  for  the  habitation  of  a  friend.  Mon- 
sieur Mignon,  the  former  proprietor,  was 
very  fond  of  his  cashier,  and  it  will  be 
seen  that  his  affection  was  reciprocated  ; 
Monsieur  Mignon  therefore  offered  him 
the  dwelling.  Believing  in  doing  things 
according  to  form,  Dumay  insisted  upon 
having  a  lease  for  a  dozen  years,  at  a  rent 
of  three  hundred  francs,  and  Monsieur 
Mignon  signed  it  willinglj',  saying : 

"  My  dear  Dumay,  you  must  not  forget 
that  you  have  now  promised  to  live  in  my 
house  for  twelve  years." 

By  reason  of  certain  events  which  will 
be  duly  related,  the  property  of  Monsieur 


Mignon,  who  was  at  one  time  the  richest 
merchant  in  Havre,  was  sold  to  Vilquin, 
one  of  his  opponents  in  business.  In  his 
delight  at  gaining  possession  of  the  cele- 
brated villa  Mignon,  the  new  proprietor 
forgot  to  ask  for  a  cancellation  of  the 
lease.  Dumay,  rather  than  hinder  the 
sale,  would  have  signed  am'thing  that 
Vilquin  had  chosen  to  exact;  but  when 
the  deeds  were  once  passed,  he  clung  to 
his  lease  as  to  a  vengeance.  He  remained 
therefore  in  Vilquin's  pocket,  as  it  were, 
in  the  heart  of  his  family,  observing  him, 
annoying  him,  irritating  him  like  a  gad- 
fly. Every  morning  when  he  looked  out 
of  his  window,  Vilquin  experienced  a  feel- 
ing of  annoyance  as  he  saw  this  little 
bijou  of  a  dwelling,  this  Chalet  which  had 
cost  sixty  thousand  francs,  and  which 
sparkled  like  a  Tn\yy  in  the  sunshine. 

The  comparison  is  not  inapt,  for  the 
architect  had  built  the  little  house  of  the 
reddest  of  red  bricks,  marked  off  with 
white.  The  window-frames  were  a  bright 
green,  and  the  woodwork  was  of  yellow- 
ish brown.  The  roof  projected  several 
feet.  A  pretty  little  detached  gallery  ran 
along  the  first  floor,  and  a  veranda  with 
glass  sides  projected  from  the  middle  of 
the  fagade.  The  ground-floor  contained  a 
prettj'  salon,  which  was  separated  from 
the  dining-room  b^^  the  landing  of  a 
wooden  staircase  whose  design  and  orna- 
ments were  of  elegant  simplicity.  The 
kitchen  was  behind  the  dining-room,  and 
there  was  a  room  back  of  the  salon  which 
was  used  as  a  bedroom  by  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Dumay.  On  the  first  floor  the 
architect  had  arranged  two  large  sleeping 
rooms,  with  a  dressing-room  attached  to 
each,  to  which  the  veranda  served  as  a 
salon.  Above  these,  and  imder  the  eaves, 
which  were  like  two  cards  tilted  against 
each  other,  were  two  rooms  in  the  man- 
sard for  servants,  each  lighted  by  a  round 
window,  and  sufficiently  spacious. 

Vilquin  had  had  the  pettiness  to  build 
a  wall  between  the  cottage  and  the 
kitchen  -  gardens ;  and  since  that  had 
been  done,  the  small  amount  of  land 
which  was  secured  to  the  Chalet  by  the 
lease  resembled  a  Paris  garden.  The  out- 
buildings, which  had  been  erected   and 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


339 


painted  to  correspond  with  the  Chalet, 
stood  with  their  backs  to  the  wall. 

The  interior  of  this  charming'  dwelling' 
was  in  harmony  with  its  exterior.  The 
salon,  inlaid  with  hard  wood,  seemed  to 
wondering'  eyes  like  a  painting-  in  imita- 
tion of  Chinese  lacker-ware.  On  black 
backgrounds  framed  in  g^old  shone  the 
many-colored  birds,  the  impossible  green 
foliage  and  the  fantastic  desig-ns  of  the 
Chinese.  The  little  dining-room  was  en- 
tirely in  Northern  wood,  cut  and  carved 
like  the  beautiful  chalets  of  Russia.  The 
little  anteroom,  formed  by  the  landing 
and  well  of  the  staircase,  was  painted  to 
represent  old  wood,  in  Gothic  ornaments. 
The  bedrooms,  with  their  chintz  hang-- 
ings,  were  delightful  in  their  simple  rich- 
ness. The  room  where  the  cashier  and 
his  wife  slept  was  sheathed  in  wood,  and 
paneled  like  the  cabin  of  a  steamboat. 
These  furnishings  explained  Vilquin's 
wrath.  He  would  have  liked  to  put  his 
daughter  and  her  husband  in  the  cottage. 
This  desire  became  known  to  Dumay,  and 
will  serve  to  explain  later  his  Breton  ob- 
stinacy. 

The  entrance  to  the  Chalet  was  through 
a  little  iron  latticed  gate,  whose  spear- 
heads rose  for  a  few  inches  above  the 
fence  and  the  hedge.  The  little  garden, 
about  equal  in  length  to  the  lawn,  was 
then  full  of  flowers,  roses,  dahlias,  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  rarest  productions 
of  the  hot-house ;  for  it  was  another  of 
Vilquin's  grievances  that  the  elegant, 
fanciful  little  hot-house  belonged  to  the 
Chalet,   and   separated,   or,  if  you  will, 

united,  the  villa  Vilquin  to  the  cottage. 

Dumay  found  his  relaxation  from  the 
fatigues  of  business  in  caring  for  this 
hot-house,  and  Modeste  found  one  of  her 
great  pleasures  among  its  exotic  treas- 
ures. The  billiard-room  of  the  villa  Vil- 
quin, which  was  a  sort  of  gallery,  for- 
merly communicated  -with  this  hot-house 
through  an  immense  aviary  in  the  form 
of  a  turret ;  but  after  the  construction  of 
the  wall  which  shut  him  off  from  a  view 
of  the  gardens,  Dumay  walled  up  the  door 
of  communication.  "Wall  for  wall,"  he 
said. 

In  1827  Vilquin  offered  Dumaj'  a  salary 


of  six  thousand  francs,  and  an  indemnity 
of  ten  thousand  more  if  he  would  relin- 
quish the  lease.  The  cashier  refused, 
although  Gobenheim,  a  former  clerk  of 
his  master's,  only  gave  him  three  thou- 
sand. Dumay  was  a  Breton  who  had 
been  transplanted  by  destiny  into  Nor- 
mandy. Imagine,  therefore,  the  hatred 
which  the  Norman  Vilquin,  a  man  worth 
three  millions,  felt  for  the  tenants  of  the 
Chalet !  Fancy  what  a  crime  it  was  to 
demonstrate  to  the  rich  man  the  impo- 
tence of  his  wealth  !  Vilquin,  whose  de- 
spair was  the  talk  of  Havre,  had  just 
proposed  to  make  Dumay  a  present  of  a 
beautiful  dwelling,  and  this  oS'er  had 
been  also  refused.  Ha^Te  began  to  grow 
uneasy  at  this  obstinacy,  which  it  ex- 
plained by  saying:  "Dumay  is  a  Breton." 
As  for  the  cashier,  he  had  an  idea  th-at 
Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon  would 
not  be  fittingly  lodged  anywhere  else. 
His  two  idols  now  inhabited  a  temple 
which  was  worthy  of  them,  and  they  had 
the  advantage  of  dwelling  in  a  sumptuous 
hut  where  dethroned  kings  might  have 
preserved  the  majesty  of  circumstance 
around  them,  a  species  of  dignity  which 
is  usually  denied  to  those  who  have  fallen 
from  better  days.  Perhaps  as  the  story 
goes  on,  the  reader  will  not  regret  hav- 
ing known  in  advance  something  about 
the  home  and  the  companions  of  Modeste; 
for  at  her  age,  people  and  things  have  as 
much  influence  over  the  future  as  char- 
acter; and  indeed,  the  character  often 
receives  ineffaceable  impressions  from 
them. 


II. 


By  the  way  in  which  the  Latournelles 
entered  the  Chalet,  a  stranger  might 
have  known  that  the^^  came  there  every 
evening. 

"  Ah  !  are  you  here  already  ?  "  said 
the  notary,  as  he  saw  in  the  salon  a 
young  banker  of  Havre,  Gobenheim,  a 
relative  of  Gobenheim  Keller,  the  chief 
of  the  great  Paris  house. 

This  young  man  had  a  pale  face ;  he 
was  one  of  tliose  blondes  with  black  eyes 


340 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


whose  motionless  gaze  has  something 
fascinating  about  it ;  he  was  temperate 
both  in  his  speech  and  in  his  life  ;  he  was 
dressed  in  black,  and  was  as  thin  as  a 
consumptive,  although  vigorously  framed. 
He  cultivated  the  family  of  his  former 
master  and  the  house  of  his  cashier  less 
tlirough  afCection  than  self-interest.  They 
played  whist  there  at  two  sous  the  point ; 
he  was  not  obliged  to  wear  a  dress-coat ; 
he  accepted  nothing  but  glasses  of  eau 
sucree,  and  therefore  was  not  obliged 
to  return  any  civilities.  This  apparent 
devotion  to  the  Mignons  gave  the  im- 
pression that  Gobenheim  had  a  heart, 
and  released  him  from  the  necessity  of 
going  into  the  fashionable  world  of 
Havre,  where  he  would  meet  with  use- 
less expenses,  which  would  disarrange 
his  domestic  life. 

This  disciple  of  the  golden  calf  went 
to  bed  every  evening  at  half-past  ten, 
and  rose  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
And  furthermore,  as  he  could  rely  uix)n 
the  discretion  of  Latournelle  and  Butscha, 
Gobenheim  could  propound  knotty  prob- 
lems to  them,  receive  gratuitous  advice 
from  tlie  notaiy,  and  get  a  just  idea  of 
the  value  of  the  gossip  of  the  street. 
This  gold-catcher,  as  Butscha  called 
him,  belonged  to  that  class  of  substances 
which  chemistry  terms  absorbents.  Since 
the  catastrophe  to  the  house  of  Mignon, 
where  the  Kellers  had  placed  him  to  learn 
the  principles  of  maritime  commerce,  no 
one  at  the  Chalet  had  ever  asked  him  to 
do  even  the  most  trivial  thing  ;  his  reply 
was  well  known.  The  fellow  looked  at 
Modeste  as  he  Avould  have  examined  a 
two-sous  lithograph.  Butscha,  whose 
wit  was  sometimes  shown  by  clever 
little  sayings  timidly  uttered,  once  re- 
marked of  him  :  "He  is  one  of  the  pis- 
tons of  the  immense  machine  called 
Commerce." 

The  four  Latournelles  saluted  with  the 
greatest  respect  an  old  lady  dressed  in 
black  velvet,  who  did  not  rise  from  the 
armchair  where  she  was  seated,  for  both 
her  eyes  were  covered  with  the  yellow 
film  produced  by  cataract.  Madame 
Mignon  may  be  briefly  described.  She 
attracted  instant  attention  hy  her  face, 


for  she  was  one  of  those  mothers  whose 
blameless  lives  defy  the  strokes  of  des- 
tiny, but  who  have  served  as  a  target  for 
its  arrows,  and  are  members  of  the  un- 
numbered tribe  of  Niobes.  Her  well- 
curled,  well-cared-for  blonde  wig  suited 
her  white  face,  which  was  as  cold  as 
those  of  the  wives  of  burgomasters, 
painted  by  Hals  or  Mirevelt.  Her  care- 
ful toilet,  her  velvet  boots,  her  lace  col- 
lar and  her  carefully  arranged  shawl,  all 
bore  witness  of  Modeste's  solicitude  for 
her  mother. 

When  silence  was  once  more  restored 
in  the  pretty  salon,  Modeste,  seated  near 
her  mother,  and  embroidering  a  fichu  for 
her,  became  for  a  moment  the  center  of 
observation.  This  curiositj^  hidden  be- 
neath the  ordinary'  salutations  and  in- 
quiries common  between  people  who  have 
just  met,  even  though  they  see  each  other 
every  day,  might  have  betrayed  the  do- 
mestic plot  against  the  young  girl,  even 
to  an  indifferent  eye  ;  but  Gobenheim, 
who  was  more  than  indifferent,  noticed 
nothing,  and  proceeded  to  light  the  can- 
dles upon  the  card  table.  Dumay's  atti- 
tude made  the  situation  a  terrible  one  for 
Butscha,  the  Latournelles,  and  particu- 
larly Madame  Dumay,  who  knew  her 
husband  to  be  capable  of  firing  upon 
Modeste's  lover,  even  as  he  would  upon 
a  mad  dog.  After  dinner  the  cashier  had 
gone  to  walk,  followed  by  two  magnifi- 
cent Pj'renees  dogs,  whom  he  suspected 
of  treachery,  and  whom  he  had  left  with 
a  former  tenant  of  Monsieur  Mignon's. 
Then,  a  few  moments  before  the  entrance 
of  the  Latournelles,  he  had  taken  his  pis- 
tols from  the  head  of  his  bed  and  placed 
them  on  the  chimney-piece,  without  at- 
tracting- Modeste's  attention.  The  young 
girl  did  not  take  the  least  notice  of  these 
pi-eparations,  singular  though  they  were. 

Although  he  was  short,  thick-set  and 
pock-marked,  with  a  way  of  speaking  in 
a  low  tone,  as  if  lie  were  listening-  to  him- 
self, this  Breton,  a  former  lieutenant  of 
the  Guard,  had  so  much  resolution  and 
coolness  plainly  graven  upon  his  face 
that  no  one  had  ventured  to  take  a  lib- 
erty with  him  during  the  twenty  years 
that  he  was  in  the  army.     His  small. 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


341 


calm  blue  ej-es  were  like  two  pieces  of 
steel.  His  ways,  his  look,  his  speech,  his 
manner,  were  all  in  keeping  with  liis 
short  name  of  Dumay.  His  phj'sical 
strength,  which  was  well-known  to 
every  one,  put  him  beyond  all  danger 
of  attack.  He  was  able  to  kill  a  man 
with  one  blow  of  his  fist,  and  had  per- 
formed that  feat  at  Bautzen,  where  he 
had  found  himself,  unarmed,  face  to  face 
with  a  Saxon,  behind  his  company. 

At  the  present  moment,  the  firm  yet 
gentle  expression  of  the  man's  face  had 
reached  a  kind  of  tragic  sublimity  ;  his 
lips  were  as  pale  as  his  face,  indicating  a 
tumult  within  him,  which  was  mastered 
by  his  Breton  will ;  a  perspiration,  slight 
but  perceptible,  which  every  one  saw  and 
guessed  to  be  cold,  moistened  his  brow. 
The  notary  knew  that  a  drama  before  the 
criminal  courts  might  result  from  these 
indications.  In  fact,  the  cashier  was  play- 
ing a  part,  in  connection  with  Modeste 
Mignon,  which  involved  sentiments  of 
honor  and  loyalty  of  far  greater  impor- 
tance than  mere  social  laws ;  proceeding 
from  one  of  those  compacts  which,  in  case 
disaster  came  of  it,  could  be  judged  only 
ill  a  higher  court  than  one  of  eai'th.  The 
majority  of  dramas  lie  I'eally  in  the  ideas 
which  we  form  of  things.  Events  which 
seem  to  us  dramatic  are  only  the  subjects 
which  our  souls  convert  into  tragedy  or 
comedy  according  to  our  characters. 

Madame  Latournelle  and  Madame  Du- 
ma^-,  who  were  detailed  to  watch  Modeste, 
had  a  certain  unnaturalness  of  demeanor 
and  a  quiver  in  their  voices  which  the  girl 
did  not  notice,  so  absorbed  was  she  in  her 
embroidery.  Modeste  placed  each  thread 
of  cotton  with  a  precision  that  would  have 
driven  an  ordinary  embroidcress  to  de- 
spair. Her  face  expressed  the  pleasure 
which  the  smooth  petals  of  a  completed 
flower  caused  her.  The  dwarf,  seated  be- 
tween his  mistress  and  Gobenheim,  re- 
strained his  emotion  as  he  asked  himself 
how  he  could  get  at  Modeste,  in  order  to 
whisper  a  word  of  warning  to  her. 

In  taking  her  place  in  front  of  Madame 
Mignon,  Madame  Latournelle  had,  with 
the  diabolical  intelligence  of  a  devotee  to 
dutj',   isolated   Modeste.     Madame  Mig- 


non, who  was  naturally  silent  on  account 
of  her  blindness,  showed  by  her  unusual 
pallor  that  she  understood  the  proof 
which  her  daughter  was  about  to  expe- 
rience. Perhaps  she  disapproved  of  the 
stratagem  at  the  last  moment,  even  while 
acknowledging  its  necessity.  Hence  her 
silence.  She  was  inwardly  mourning. 
Exiipere,  who  was  to  spring  the  trap, 
was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  piece  in 
which  chance  had  given  him  a  part. 
Gobenheim,  by  reason  of  his  character, 
showed  an  indifference  equal  to  that  of 
Modeste  herself.  For  a  spectator  who 
knew  what  was  going  on  behind  the 
scenes,  this  contrast  between  the  com- 
plete ignorance  of  some  and  the  quivering 
expectation  of  others  would  have  been 
sublime.  In  these  days,  more  than  ever 
before,  do  romance  writers  arrange  ef- 
fects like  these,  as  they  have  a  perfect 
right  to  do  ;  for  nature  is  alwaj's  stronger 
than  they.  In  this  particular  case,  social 
nature,  which  is  a  nature  within  nature, 
was  amusing  itself  by  making  truth  more 
interesting  than  fiction ;  just  as  torrents 
describe  fanciful  curves  which  are  forbid- 
den to  painters,  and  accomplish  feats  of 
strength  by  loosening  or  polishing  stones 
in  a  manner  to  surprise  sculptors  and 
architects. 

It  was  eight  o'clock.  At  that  season, 
twilight  was  just  closing  in.  On  this  par- 
ticular evening,  the  sky  was  cloudless,  the 
warm  air  caressed  the  earth,  the  air  was 
balmy  with  the  breath  of  the  flowers,  and 
the  creaking  of  the  sand  could  be  heard 
beneath  the  feet  of  some  returning  prome- 
naders.  The  sea  shone  like  a  mirror. 
There  was  so  little  wind  that  the  lighted 
candles  upon  the  table  burned  quieth',' 
although  the  windows  were  partly  open. 
This  salon,  this  evening,  this  abode,  were 
a  fitting  frame  for  the  portrait  of  the 
young  girl,  who  was  being  as  attentively 
observed  by  all  these  people  as  a  painter 
would  study  the  Margheinta  Doni,  one  of 
the  glories  of  the  Pitti  Palace.  Modeste, 
a  flower  inclosed  like  that  of  Catullus — 
was  she  worth  all  these  precautions  ? 

You  have  seen  the  cage  ;  now  behold 
the  bird  ! 

Twenty  \'ears  of  age,  slender  and  deli- 


342 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


cate  as  one  of  those  sirens  which  are  in- 
vented by  English  artists  for  their  "  Boolcs 
of  Beauty."  Modeste,  hke  her  mother 
before  her,  was  a  coquettish  embodiment 
of  that  grace  which  is  so  little  understood 
in  France,  which  is  there  called  sentimen- 
tality, but  which  the  Germans  know  to  be 
that  poetry  of  the  heart  which  comes  to 
the  surface,  manifesting  itself  by  affecta- 
tions if  the  owner  is  silly,  but  in  divine 
beauties  of  manner  if  she  be  spirituelle. 
She  was  remarkable  for  her  pale  gold 
hair,  and  she  belonged  to  that  typo  of 
women  who  are  called,  probably  in  mem- 
ory of  Eve,  celestial  blondes,  whose  satin- 
like skin  resembles  silk  paper  over  the 
flesh,  who  shiver  at  a  cold  look  and  blos- 
som beneath  a  warm  one,  and  who  make 
the  hand  jealous  of  the  eye. 

Beneath  her  hair,  which  was  soft  and 
light  as  a  feather,  and  curled  in  the  En- 
glish style,  her  forehead,  which  was  per- 
fect in  shape  and  drawing,  was  full  of 
thought  and  calm,  although  luminous 
with  intelligence ;  but  where  could  an- 
other be  found  so  transparently  pure  ? 
It  seemed,  like  a  pearl,  to  have  an  orient. 

The  eyes,  which  were  gray -blue  in  color, 
were  clear  as  those  of  a  child,  shoXving 
all  the  mischief  and  all  the  innocence  of 
childhood,  harmonizing  with  the  arch  of 
the  eyebrows,  which  was  faintl\^  indicated 
by  lines  like  those  made  with  a  pencil 
upon  Chinese  faces.  This  innocent  candor 
was  still  further  shown  around  the  eyes 
and  on  the  temples,  by  tints  of  mother- 
of-pearl,  with  blue  veins,  the  privilege  of 
these  delicate  complexions.  The  face  of 
that  oval  so  often  chosen  by  Raphael  for 
his  Madonnas  was  distinguished  by  the 
quiet  and  sober  tints  of  the  cheeks,  modest 
as  a  Beng'al  rose,  upon  which  the  long 
lashes  of  transparent  ej'elids  cast  shadows 
mingled  with  light.  The  neck,  now  bend- 
ing over,  was  almost  too  delicate,  of  a 
milky  whiteness,  recalling  those  vanish- 
ing lines  beloved  of  Ijconardo  da  Vinci. 
A  few  slight  blemishes,  like  the  patches 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  betrayed  the 
fact  that  Modeste  was  a  child  of  earth, 
and  not  one  of  those  creations  di'eamed 
of  in  Italy  b^'  the  angelic  school.  Her 
lips,  although  at  once  delicate  and   full, 


were  slightlj^  mocking  and  somewhat 
voluptuous;  her  figure,  supple  without 
being  fragile,  had  no  fears  for  maternity 
like  that  of  those  young  girls  who  seek 
beauty  by  the  extreme  pressure  of  a 
corset.  Dimity  and  steel  and  lacings  de- 
fined but  did  not  manufacture  the  serpen- 
tine lines  of  her  elegant  figure,  graceful 
as  that  of  a  young  poplar  swaying  in 
the  wind. 

A  dress  of  pearl  gray,  with  cherry- 
colored  trimmings,  made  with  a  long 
waist,  modestly  outlined  the  corsage  and 
covered  the  shoulders,  winch  were  still 
rather  thin,  with  a  guimpe  that  showed 
only  the  first  curves  which  joined  the 
neck  to  the  shoulders.  At  the  sight  of 
this  ethereal  and  intelligent  face,  which 
was  made  more  positive  by  the  delicate 
lines  of  a  Grecian  nose  with  rose-colored 
nostrils  ;  where  the  poetry  of  the  almost 
mystical  forehead  was  half  contradicted 
by  the  voluptuous  expression  of  the 
mouth ;  where  candor  disputed  the  pro- 
found and  varied  depths  of  the  eyQ  with 
a  finished  mockery,  an  observer  would 
have  thought  that  this  young  girl,  with 
her  alert  and  quick  ear,  which  started  at 
the  least  sound,  and  a  nostril  ready  to 
catch  the  celestial  perfumes  of  the  ideal, 
was  destined  to  be  the  theater  of  a  com- 
bat between  the  poetry  of  the  dawn  and 
the  labors  of  the  day,  between  fancy  and 
reality.  Modeste  was  the  cui'ious,  modest 
young  girl,  knowing  her  destinj',  and  full 
of  chastity,  the  Virgin  of  Spain  rather 
than  that  of  Raphael. 

She  lifted  her  head  as  she  heard  Dumay 
say  to  Exupere : 

"  Come  here,  young  man  !  " 

As  she  watched  them  talking  in  a  corner, 
she  believed  that  it  was  a  question  of  some 
errand  to  be  done  in  Paris.  She  looked  at 
the  friends  around  her,  as  if  astonished  at 
their  silence,  and  exclaimed  in  a  perfectly 
natural  manner : 

"  Well,  are  you  not  going  to  play  ?  "  at 
the  same  time  pointing  to  the  green  table 
which  the  grand  Madame  Latournelle 
called  the  altar. 

"Let  us  begin  to  play,"  said  Dumay, 
who  had  just  dismissed  the  young  Exu- 
pere. 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


343 


"  You  sit  there,  Butscha,"  said  Madame 
Latournelle,  separating-  the  clerk  by  the 
lengi:h  of  the  table  from  the  group  formed 
by  Madame  Mig-non  and  her  daughter. 

"And  you  come  here,"  said  Dumay  to 
his  wife,  placing-  her  near  himself. 

Madame  Dumay,  a  little  American  of 
thirty-six  j^ears  old,  furtively  wiped  awaj' 
a  few  tears;  she  adored  Modeste  and 
feared  a  catastrophe. 

"You  are  not  very  gay  this  evening-," 
continued  Modeste. 

"  We  are  going-  to  play,"  returned  Go- 
benheini,  who  was  arranging  his  cards. 

However  interesting  the  situation  may 
be,  it  will  become  still  more  so  by  explain- 
ing- the  position  of  Dumay  relative  to  Mo- 
deste. If  the  brevity  of  this  recital  renders 
it  dull,  we  crave  pardon  by  reason  of  a 
desire  to  complete  this  scene  promptly, 
and  by  the  necessity  of  relating  the  argu- 
ment by  which  all  dramas  are  regulated. 


III. 


Anne  Francois  Bernard  Dumay  was 
born  at  Vannes.  He  enlisted  as  a  soldier 
in  1799,  in  the  army  of  Italy.  His  fathef" 
was  president  of  the  revolutionary  tribu- 
nal, and  displayed  so  much  energy  that 
the  place  became  too  hot  to  hold  the  son 
after  the  father,  who  was  a  rascally  avo- 
cat,  died  upon  the  scaffold  after  the  9th 
Thermidor.  His  mother  died  of  grief,  and 
then  Anne  sold  everything  that  he  pos- 
sessed and  hastened  to  Italy  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two,  when  the  French  army 
was  beginning  to  give  way. 

In  the  department  of  Var  he  met  a 
young  man  who  was  also  in  search  of 
glory,  believing  a  battlefield  less  peril- 
ous than  his  own  Provence.  Charles 
Mignon,  the  last  of  that  noble  family  to 
whom  Paris  owes  the  street  and  the 
hotel  built  by  Cardinal  Mignon,  had  for 
a  father  a  shrewd  and  cunning  man  who 
desired  to  save  the  estate  of  La  Bastie,  a 
pretty  little  feudal  manor,  from  the  claws 
of  the  Revolution.  Like  all  the  cowards 
of  that  epoch,  the  Count  de  la  Bastie, 
who  had  become  the  Citizen  Mignon,  be- 


lieved that  it  was  safer  to  cut  off  other 
people's  heads  than  to  allow  them  to  cut 
ofl'  his.  The  false  terrorist  disappeared 
at  the  time  of  the  9th  Thermidor,  and 
was  put  upon  the  list  of  emigrants.  The 
estate  of  La  Bastie  was  sold,  and  the  tur- 
reted  towers  of  the  dishonored  chateau 
were  leveled  with  the  ground.  The  Citi- 
zen Mignon  was  discovered  at  Orange 
and  massacred  with  his  wife  and  all  his 
childi-en  except  Charles  Mignon,  whom 
he  had  sent  to  seek  an  asylum  for  him 
in  the  Upper  Alps. 

Overcome  by  the  frightful  intelligence, 
Charles  waited  in  a  valley  of  Mont  Gin- 
evra  until  the  times  should  become  less 
perilous;  he  remained  there  until  1T99, 
living  upon  the  few  louis  which  his  father 
had  put  into  his  hand  when  he  started. 
At  last,  when  he  was  twenty -three  years 
old,  and  without  any  other  fortune  than 
his  fine  appearance,  that  southern  beauty- 
which,  when  it  is  in  perfection,  reaches 
the  sublime  (whose  type  is  Antinous,  the 
illustrious  favorite  of  Adrien),  he  resolved 
to  hazard  upon  the  red  cloth  of  war  his 
Provencal  audacity,  which  he,  like  so 
many  others,  mistook  for  a  vocation. 
When  he  Avas  on  his  way  to  the  head- 
quarters of  the  army,  which  was  then 
at  Nice,  he  met  the  Breton. 

The  two  men  became  comrades,  both 
through  the  similarity  of  their  destinies 
and  the  contrast  in  their  characters. 
They  drank  out  of  the  same  cup,  and  ate 
from  the  same  biscuit,  and  in  the  peace 
which  followed  the  battle  of  Marengo 
they  were  both  made  sergeants.  When 
the  war  began  again,  Charles  Mignon 
succeeded  in  entering  the  cavalrj',  and 
lost  sight  of  his  comrade.  In  1813  he  was 
an  oificer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and 
major  of  a  cavalry  regiment :  he  hoped 
to  regain  his  title  of  Count  de  la  Bastie, 
and  to  be  made  colonel  by  the  emperor. 
He  was,  however,  taken  prisoner  by  the 
Russians,  and  sent,  like  so  many  others, 
to  Siberia.  His  companion  on  the  jour- 
nej"-  was  a  poor  lieutenant  in  whom  he 
recognized  Anne  Dumay.  This  man  had 
no  decorations,  although  he  was  a  brave 
man ;  he  was  unfortunate,  like  so  many 
others  of  the  rank  and  file,  the  wool-epau- 


344 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


leted  ones,  that  canvas  of  men  upon 
which  Napoleon  painted  the  empire. 
While  they  were  in  Siberia  the  lieutenant- 
colonel,  in  order  to  kill  time,  taught  arith- 
metic and  writing  to  the  Breton,  whose 
father  had  not  thought  it  worth  while  to 
educate  him.  Charles  found  in  his  old 
comrade  one  of  those  rare  heai'ts  into 
which  he  could  pour  both  his  griefs  and 
his  joys. 

The  son  of  Provence  finally  met  the 
fate  which  awaits  all  fine  fellows.  In 
1804,  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  he  was 
beloved  by  Bettina  Wallenrod,  the  only 
daughter  of  a  banker,  and  he  married  her 
all  the  more  willingly  since  she  was  rich 
and  a  beauty,  while  he  himself  was  only 
a  lieutenant,  \\\\,\\  no  other  fortune  than 
the  excessively  problematical  future  of  a 
soldier  of  that  peinod.  The  father,  a  de- 
cayed baron  (there  is  always  a  baron  in 
a  German  bank),  was  charmed  to  learn 
that  the  handsome  lieutenant  represented 
in  his  own  person  the  family  of  Mignons 
of  La  Bastie,  and  approved  of  the  choice 
of  the  blonde  Bettina,  whom  a  painter 
(there  was  one  in  Frankfort  then)  had 
lately  painted  as  an  ideal  of  Germany. 
The  banker  forthwith  named  his  future 
grandsons  Counts  of  La  Bastie  Wallen- 
rod,  and  placed  a  sufficient  sum  in  the 
French  funds  to  give  his  daughter  an  in- 
come of  thirty'  thousand  francs.  This 
dowry  made  a  very  small  hole  in  his  capi- 
tal, the  value  of  money  being  then  very 
low.  The  Empire,  following  the  policy  of 
many  other  debtors,  rarely  paid  its  divi- 
dends ;  Charles,  therefore,  felt  rather  un- 
easy at  this  investment,  for  he  had  not  as 
much  faith  as  the  baron  in  the  imperial 
eagles.  Faith,  and  the  admiration  which 
is  only  an  ephemeral  belief,  rarely  sur- 
vives when  brought  into  close  contact 
with  its  idol.  The  machine  which  is  ad- 
mired by  the  traveler  is  distrusted  by  the 
mechanic;  and  the  stokers  of  the  Na- 
poleonic engine  were  the  officers  of  the 
armj' — if,  indeed,  they  were  not  its  fuel. 

The  Baron  Wallenrod  Tustall  Barten- 
stild  promised  to  assist  the  young  house- 
hold, however.  Charles  loved  Bettina  as 
much  as  she  loved  him,  and  that  is  saj'- 
ing  a  good  deal;  but  when  a  Provencal 


becomes  enthusiastic,  everj'thing  in  him 
rises  tO'  the  level  of  his  exalted  senti- 
ments. But  how  could  he  help  adoring 
that  blonde  loveliness,  which  looked  as  if 
it  had  escaped  from  one  of  Albert  Durer's 
pictures,  and  which  was  furthermore 
joined  to  an  angelic  character  and  a 
fortune  renowned  in  Frankfort  ? 

At  the  period  when  he  confided  his  sor- 
rows to  the  Breton,  Charles  had  had  four 
children,  of  whom  only  two  daughters 
were  living.  Dumay,  without  knowing 
them,  loved  these  two  little  daughters 
out  of  sheer  sympathy.  The  elder,  named 
Bettina  Caroline,  was  boru  in  1805 ;  the 
other,  Marie  Modesto,  in  1808.  The  un- 
fortunate lieutenant-colonel,  without  any 
news  of  his  loved  ones,  returned  on  foot, 
in  1814,  across  Russia  and  Prussia,  ac- 
companied by  the  lieutenant.  The  two 
friends,  between  whose  heai'ts  there  ex- 
isted no  dilTerence  of  rank,  reached  Frank- 
fort just  as  Napoleon  was  landing  at 
Cannes. 

Charles  found  his  wife  in  Frankfort, 
but  she  was  in  mourning ;  she  had  had 
the  misfortune  to  lose  her  father,  by 
whom  she  was  adored,  and  who  would 
have  liked  to  see  her  alwaj's  happy,  even 
at  his  death-bed.  He  did  not  survive  the 
disasters  of  the  Empire.  When  he  was 
seventy-two  years  old  he  speculated  in 
cottons,  believing  in  the  genius  of  Napo- 
leon, not  knowing  that  genius  is  as  often 
beyond  events  as  at  the  bottom  of  them. 
The  last  of  the  Wallenrods  had  purchased 
almost  as  many  bales  of  cotton  as  the 
emperor  had  lost  men  in  the  glorious 
campaign  in  France. 

Glad  to  have  saved  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters from  the  general  shipwreck,  Mignon 
went  back  to  Paris,  and  was  made  by 
the  emperor  lieutenant  -  colonel  in  the 
cuirassiers  of  the  Guard,  and  commandei- 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  It  was  the 
dream  of  the  colonel  to  become  count 
and  general  after  Napoleon's  first  vic- 
tory, but  the  dream  was  overwhelmed  by 
the  waves  of  blood  at  Waterloo.  The 
colonel,  slightlj'  wounded,  retired  to  the 
Loire,  and  left  Tours  before  the  army 
disbanded . 

In  the  spring  of  1816,  Charles  Mignon 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


345 


sold  out  of  the  funds,  and  realized  nearlj' 
four  hundred  thousand  francs,  with  which 
he  resolved  to  go  and  seek  his  fortune  in 
America,  and  leave  the  country'  where 
Napoleon's  soldiers  were  already  begin- 
ning- to  feel  persecution.  He  was  accom- 
panied from  Paris  to  Havre  by  Dumay, 
whose  life  he  had  saved,  as  often  hap- 
pened in  the  chances  of  war,  by  taking 
him  up  on  his  saddle  in  the  rout  after  the 
battle  of  Waterloo.  Dumay  shared  the 
opinions  and  the  discouragement  of 
the  colonel ;  and  the  poor  fellow  idolized 
the  two  little  girls,  and  followed  Charles 
like  a  spaniel ;  and  the  latter,  thinking 
that  the  habit  of  obedience,  joined  to  the 
honestj'  and  the  faithful  attachment  of 
the  lieutenant,  would  make  him  a  faithful 
and  useful  servant,  proposed  to  him  to 
put  himself  under  his  orders  in  civil  life. 

Dumay  was  delighted  to  be  adopted  by 
a  familj'  with  whom  he  expected  to  have 
the  relations  of  the  mistletoe  to  the  oak. 

While  thej^  were  waiting  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  embark,  choosing  among  the 
ships  and  debating  the  chances  offered 
by  their  destinations,  the  colonel  heard 
rumors  of  the  brilliant  destiny  which  was 
reserved  for  Havre  after  the  peace. 
While  listening  to  the  talk  of  two  citi- 
zens, he  saw  the  means  of  fortune,  and 
became  at  once  a  shipping-merchant,  a 
banker,  and  a  landed  proprietor ;  he 
bought  lands  and  houses  for  two  hundi'ed 
thousand  francs,  and  sent  to  New  York 
a  vessel  laden  with  French  silks  which  he 
bought  at  Lyons  for  a  low  figure.  Dumay 
was  his  agent,  and  went  on  the  ship. 
While  the  colonel  was  installing  himself 
and  his  family  in  the  finest  house  on  the 
Rue  Royale,  and  learning  the  elements  of 
banking  with  the  activity  and  extraor- 
dinary intelligence  of  a  native  of  Pro- 
vence, Dumay  was  making  two  fortunes, 
for  he  returned  with  a  consignment  of 
cotton  that  he  had  bought  at  a  ridicu- 
lously low  price.  Tliis  double  operation 
was  woi'th  an  enormous  amount  of  money 
to  the  house  of  Mignon. 

Then  the  colonel  bought  the  villa  at  In- 
gouville,  and  rewarded  Dumay  by  giving 
him  a  modest  house  on  the  Rue  Royale. 
The  subordinate  had  brought  fi'om  New 


York,  with  his  bales  of  cotton,  a  prettj' 
little  woman  who  was  attracted  by  the 
Frenchman.  Miss  Grummer  had  about 
four  thousand  dollars,  or  twenty  thou- 
sand francs,  which  Dumaj-  placed  with 
his  colonel.  Dumay,  who  had  become 
the  right  hand  of  the  shipping-merchant, 
soon  learned  to  keep  his  books,  a  science 
which,  according  to  himself,  belongs  to 
the  sergeant-majors  of  commerce. 

This  open-hearted  soldier,  who  had  been 
neglected  by  fortune  for  twentj^  years, 
thought  himself  the  luckiest  man  in  the 
world  when  he  became  proprietor  of  a 
house  which  the  generosity  of  his  chief 
filled  with  pretty  furniture,  and  which 
was  supplemented  by  the  twelve  hun- 
dred francs  of  income  which  he  had  in 
the  funds,  and  by  his  salary  of  thirty-six 
hundred  francs.  In  his  wUdest  dreams 
Lieutenant  Dumay  had  never  hoped  for 
such  happiness;  but  it  was  still  more 
satisfaction  to  him  to  see  hin:iself  the 
pivot  upon  which  revolved  the  richest 
commercial  house  in  Havre.  Madame 
Dumay  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  all  her 
children  at  birth,  and  she  therefore  at- 
tached herself  to  the  two  Mignon  girls 
with  as  much  love  as  Dumay  himself, 
who  would  have  preferred  them  to  his 
own  daughters  if  he  had  had  any. 

Every  year  Dumay  placed  two  thousand 
francs  or  more  in  the  house  of  Mignon. 
When  the  annual  balance  sheet  was  ex- 
amined, the  patron  added  something  to 
the  cashier's  account  with  a  gratification 
which  corresponded  Avith  his  services.  In 
1824,  the  cashier's  credit  amounted  to  fifty- 
eight  thousand  francs.  It  was  then  that 
Charles  Mignon,  count  of  La  Bastie,  al- 
though the  title  was  never  used,  over- 
whelmed his  cashier  by  lodging  him  in 
the  Chalet,  where  Modeste  and  her  mo- 
ther were  livmg  quietlj'  at  the  time  this 
story  opens. 

The  deplorable  state  of  Madame  Mig- 
non, who  had  .still  been  beautiful  at  the 
time  of  her  husband's  departure,  was 
caused  by  the  catastrophe  to  which 
Charles's  absence  was  due.  It  had  taken 
three  years  for  grief  to  break  down  the 
gentle  German  woman  ;  but  it  was  a  grief 
that  gnawed  at  her  heart  like  a  worm  at 


346 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


the  heart  of  fruit.  The  explanation  is 
easily  found.  Two  children,  who  had 
died  in  infancy,  were  mourned  by  a 
heart  that  could  not  forg'et.  Her  hus- 
band's exile  to  Siberia  was  to  the  loving 
wife  a  daily  death.  The  misfortunes  of 
the  rich  house  of  Wallenrod,  and  the 
death  of  the  wealthy  banker,  a  ruined 
man,  at  a  time  when  she  was  uncertain 
as  to  her  husband's  fate,  was  a  dreadful 
blow.  The  excessive  jo^^  which  she  felt 
at  her  husband's  return  nearly  killed  her. 
Then  came  the  second  fall  of  the  Empire, 
and  the  proposed  expatriation,  which 
were  like  a  relapse  of  the  same  fever  to 
her.  Finally,  there  came  ten  years  of 
continued  prosperity,  the  enjoyment  of 
her  house,  the  handsomest  in  Havre,  the 
dinners,  balls  and  fetes  of  the  prosperous 
merchant,  the  elegances  of  the  villa  Mig- 
non,  and  the  great  consideration  and  re- 
spectful esteem  which  her  husband  pos- 
sessed ;  and  all  these  things,  together 
with  the  entire  affection  of  her  husband, 
who  returned  her  unique  love  in  kind, 
reconciled  the  poor  woman  to  life.  And 
then,  just  when  she  had  least  expected  it, 
when  she  was  looking  forward  to  a  peace- 
ful evening  after  a  stormy  day,  an  un- 
looked-for catastrophe,  which  was  buried 
in  the  heart  of  this  double  family,  and  to 
which  we  shall  soon  refer,  had  come  as 
the  forerunner  of  renewed  trials. 

In  January,  182C,  in  the  midst  of  a 
fete,  when  Charles  Mignon  was  the  choice 
of  all  Havre  as  its  deputy',  three  letters, 
from  New  York,  Paris  and  London,  had 
shattered,  like  so  many  blows  of  a  ham- 
mer, the  glass  of  the  palace  of  prosper- 
ity. In  ten  minutes  ruin  had  swooped 
down  with  its  vulture  wings  upon  their 
great  happiness,  as  the  cold  fell  upon  the 
great  army  in  1812.  In  a  single  night, 
which  Dumay  and  Charles  Mignon  spent 
in  going  over  the  accounts,  the  latter 
took  his  resolve.  The  whole  property, 
not  excepting  the  furniture,  would  be  suf- 
ficient to  pay  everything. 

"Havre,"  said  the  colonel,  "will  never 
see  me  afoot.  Dumaj%  I  will  take  your 
sixty  thousand  francs  at  six  per  cent." 

"Take  it  at  three,  colonel." 

"At  nothing,  then,"   replied  Mignon, 


peremptorilJ^  "  I  will  give  j'ou  a  share 
in  my  new  undertakings.  The  Modeste, 
which  is  no  longer  mine,  sails  to-morrow  ; 
the  captain  will  take  me  with  him.  I 
charge  you  with  the  care  of  my  wife  and 
daughter.  I  shall  never  write ;  no  news 
is  good  news." 

Dumay,  who  still  preserved  his  military 
characteristics,  did  not  ask  his  colonel  a 
single  question  about  his  plans. 

"  I  believe,"  he  said  to  Latournelle, 
with  a  little  knowing  air,  "  that  the 
colonel  has  his  plans  all  made." 

On  the  next  day,  at  daybreak,  he  ac- 
companied the  colonel  on  board  the  ship 
La  Modeste,  bound  for  Constantinople. 
There,  on  the  poop  of  the  vessel,  the  Bre- 
ton said  to  the  Provencal : 

"What  are  jouv  final  orders,  colonel  ?  " 

"Let  no  man  approach  the  Chalet," 
said  the  father,  with  difficult}'  restraining 
his  emotion.  "Dumaj',  guard  my  last 
child  for  me,  as  a  bull-dog  would  guard 
it.  Death  to  any  one  who  would  try  to 
harm  my  second  daughter  !  Nothing, 
not  even  the  scaffold,  would  prevent  me 
from  joining  you." 

"■  Colonel,  you  may  rest  easy.  I  under- 
stand you.  You  will  find  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  as  you  left  her,  or  I  shall  be  dead. 
You  know  me,  and  you  know  my  two 
Pyrenees  dogs.  No  one  shall  get  at  your 
daughter.  Your  pardon  for  having  said 
so  much." 

The  two  soldiers  embraced  each  other 
like  men  who  have  been  in  Siberia  to- 
gether. 

That  same  day  the  "  Courrier-Havre  " 
published  this  terrible,  simple,  energetic 
notice  : 

"  The  house  of  Charles  Mignon  has  sus- 
pended paj'ment.  But  the  undersigned 
assignees  engage  to  pay  all  liabilities. 
On  and  after  this  date,  holders  of  notes 
may  obtain  the  usual  discount.  The  sale 
of  the  landed  estates  will  cover  the  current 
indebtedness. 

"  This  notice  is  given  for  the  honor  of 
the  house,  and  to  prevent  any  disturbance 
in  the  money-market  of  Havre. 

"  Monsieur  Charles  Mignon  sailed  this 
morning  on  the  Modeste  for  Asia  Minor, 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


347 


leaving  full  powers  with  the  undersigned 
to  sell  all  his  property,  including  the  per- 
sonal. 

"DuMAY,  assignee  of  the  Bank  ac- 
counts, 
"  Latottrnelle,  notary,  assignee  of 
the  city  and  suburban  property, 
"  GoBENHEiM,    assignee  of  the  com- 
mercial propertj'." 

Latournelle  had  owed  his  prosperity  to 
the  goodness  of  Monsieur  Mignon,  who 
had  lent  him  one  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  1817  to  buy  the  finest  law 
practice  in  Havre.  The  poor  man,  who 
had  no  property  of  his  own,  was  then 
forty  3-ears  of  age,  with  no  prospect  of 
being  other  than  head-clerk  for  the  rest 
of  his  daj^s.  He  was  the  only  man  in 
Havre  whose  devotion  could  be  compared 
with  that  of  Duraay.  As  for  Gobenheim, 
he  profited  b,y  the  liquidation  to  carry  on 
a  part  of  Monsieur  Mignon's  business, 
which  lifted  his  own  little  bank  into 
prominence. 

While  universal  regrets  for  the  dis- 
aster were  expressed  at  the  Exchange, 
on  the  wharves,  and  in  private  houses, 
and  while  praises  of  such  an  irreproach- 
able, honorable,  and  beneficent  man  filled 
every  mouth,  Latournelle  and  Dumay,  si- 
lent and  active  as  ants,  sold  land,  turned 
property  into  money,  paid  debts,  and 
settled  up  affairs.  Vilquin  showed  his 
generosity  by  purchasing  the  \-illa,  the 
town-house,  and  a  farm ;  and  Latournelle 
made  the  most  of  his  liberality  by  charg- 
ing him  a  good  price.  Society  wished  to 
visit  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon  ; 
but  they  had  already  obej'ed  the  father's 
last  wishes  by  taking  refuge  in  the  Chalet, 
where  they  went  on  the  very  morning  of 
his  departure,  which  had  been  at  first 
concealed  from  them.  Not  wishing  to 
be  shaken  in  his  resolution  by  his  grief 
at  parting  from  them,  the  brave  man 
said  farewell  to  his  wife  and  daughter 
Avhile  they  slept.  Three  hundred  visiting 
cards  were  left  at  the  house.  A  fortnight 
later,  as  Charles  had  predicted,  complete 
forgetfulness  settled  down  upon  the  Cha- 
let, and  proved  to  these  women  the  grand- 
eur and  wisdom  of  his  resolution. 


Dumay  caused  his  master  to  be  repre- 
sented by  agents  Ln  New  York,  Paris  and 
London,  and  followed  up  the  settlement 
of  the  three  banking-houses  whose  failure 
had  caused  the  ruin  of  the  Havre  house, 
thus  realizing  five  hundred  thousand 
francs  between  1826  and  1828,  an  eighth 
of  Charles's  whole  fortune  ;  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  directions  which  had  been 
given  him  on  the  night  of  his  master's 
departure,  he  sent  that  sum  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year  1828  to  New  York 
through  the  house  of  Mongenod,  to  the 
credit  of  Monsieur  Mignon.  All  this  was 
done  with  military  obedience,  except  in 
a  matter  of  withholding  thirty  thousand 
francs  for  the  personal  expenses  of  Ma- 
dame and  Mademoiselle  Mignon  as  the 
colonel  had  ordered  him  to  do,  but  which 
Dumay  had  not  done.  The  Breton  sold 
his  town  house  for  twenty'  thousand 
francs,  which  sum  he  gave  to  Madame 
Mignon,  believing  that  the  more  capital 
he  sent  to  his  colonel  the  sooner  the  latter 
would  return. 

"  A  man  might  perish  for  the  want 
of  thirty  thousand  francs,"  Dumay  re- 
marked to  Latournelle,  who  bought  the 
little  house  at  its  full  value,  where  an 
apartment  was  always  kept  ready  for 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Chalet. 


IV. 


Such  was  to  the  celebrated  house  of 
Mignon  at  Havre  the  result  of  the  crisis 
of  1825-26,  which  convulsed  the  principal 
business  centers  in  Europe  and  caused,  it 
will  he  remembered,  the  ruin  of  several 
Parisian  bankers,  and  among  others  that 
of  the  president  of  the  chamber  of  com- 
merce. 

It  is  therefore  easj''  to  understand  how 
this  great  disaster,  coming  suddenly  at 
the  close  of  ten  years  of  bourgeois  sov- 
ereignty, might  well  have  been  the  death 
of  Bettina  Wallenrod,  who  was  again 
separated  from  her  husband  and  igno- 
rant of  his  fate — to  her  as  adventurous 
and  perilous  as  the  exile  to  Siberia.  But 
tlie  grief  which  was  dragging  her  to  the 
grave  was  far  other  than  these  visible 


348 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


sorrows.  The  caustic  that  was  slowly 
eating-  into  the  poor  mother's  heart  lay 
beneath  a  stone  in  the  little  graveyard  of 
Ingouville,  on  which  was  inscribed  :  — 

BETTINA  CAROLINE  MIGNON. 

DIED  AGED  TWENTY-TWO. 

PRAY    FOR    HEE. 

1827. 

This  inscription  is  for  a  young-  girl  what 
many  another  epitaph  has  been  for  the 
dead,  an  index  to  an  unknown  book. 
Here  is  the  book,  in  its  terrible  brevitj^ ; 
and  it  will  explain  the  oath  exacted  and 
taken  when  the  colonel  and  the  lieutenant 
bade  each  other  farewell. 

A  .young  man  of  charming  appearance, 
named  Georges  d'Estourny,  came  to 
Havre  for  the  commonplace  purpose  of 
being  near  the  sea,  and  there  he  saw^ 
Caroline  Mignon.  A  soi-disant  fashion- 
able Parisian  is  never  without  introduc- 
tions, and  he  was  invited  through  a  friend 
of  the  Mignons  to  a  fete  given  at  Ingou- 
ville. He  fell  in  love  with  Caroline  and 
her  fortune,  and  in  thi'ee  months  he  had 
accomplished  his  purpose  and  enticed  her 
awaj'.  The  father  of  a  family  of  daugh- 
ters should  no  more  allow  a  young  man 
Avhom  he  does  not  know  to  enter  his  home 
than  he  should  leave  books  and  papers 
lying-  about  which  he  has  not  read.  A 
young  girl's  innocence  is  like  milk,  which 
may  be  turned  by  a  clap  of  thunder,  an 
evil  odor,  a  hot  day,  a  mere  breath,  a 
nothing. 

When  Charles  Mignon  read  his  eldest 
daughter's  farewell  letter,  he  instantly 
dispatched  Madame  Dumay  to  Paris.  The 
family  gave  out  that  a  journey  to  another 
climate  had  suddenly  been  ordered  by 
their  physician ;  and  the  physician  him- 
self snstained  the  excuse,  though  unable 
to  prevent  the  society  of  Havre  from  talk- 
ing about  the  absence.  "  Such  a  vigorous 
young  girl !  with  the  complexion  of  a 
Spaniard,  and  that  black  hair  ! — she  con- 
sumptive !  "  "Yes,  they  s&y  she  was 
imprudent  in  some  way."  "Ah,  ah!" 
cried  a  Vilquin.  "I  am  told  she  came 
back  in  a  perspiration  from  a  riding 
party,  and  drank  iced  water ;  at  least, 
that  is  what  Dr.  Troussenard  saj'S." 


When  Madame  Dumay  returned  to 
Havre  the  catastrophe  of  the  failui-e  had 
taken  place,  and  society  paid  no  further 
attention  to  Caroline's  absence,  or  to  the 
return  of  the  cashier's  wife.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  1827  the  newspapers  rang  with 
the  trial  of  Georges  D'Estournj',  who  was 
found  guilty  of  cheating  at  cards.  The 
young  corsair  escaped  into  foreign  parts 
without  paying  any  attention  to  Made- 
moiselle Mignon,  who  had  ceased  to  be  of 
value  since  the  failure  at  Havre.  Caro- 
line heard  of  his  infamous  desertion  and 
of  her  father's  ruin  almost  at  the  same 
time.  She  returned  home  mortally  ill, 
and  wasted  awaj'  at  the  Chalet  in  a  few 
days.  Her  death  at  least  jirotected  her 
reputation.  The  illness  that  Monsieur 
Mignon  had  alleged  to  be  the  cause  of 
her  absence,  and  the  doctor's  order  send- 
ing her  to  Nice,  were  now  generally  be- 
lieved. Up  to  the  last  moment  the  mo- 
ther hoped  to  save  her  daughter's  life. 
Caroline  was  her  darling,  as  Modeste  was 
the  father's.  There  was  something  touch- 
ing in  the  two  preferences.  Caroline  was 
the  image  of  Charles,  while  Modeste  was 
the  reproduction  of  her  mother.  Both 
parents  continued  their  love  for  each 
other  in  their  children.  Caroline,  a  daugh- 
ter of  Provence,  inherited  from  her  father 
the  beautiful  hair,  black  as  a  raven's 
wing,  which  is  so  much  admired  in  the 
women  of  the  South,  together  with  the 
brown  eye,  almond-shaped  and  brilliant 
as  a  star,  the  olive  complexion,  the  velvet 
skin  as  of  some  golden  fruit,  the  arched 
instep,  and  the  Spanish  waist  from  which 
the  short  basque  skirt  fell  crisply.  Both 
mother  and  father  were  proud  of  the 
charming  contrast  between  the  sisters. 
"A  devil  and  an  angel ! "  they  said  to 
each  other,  laughing,  little  thinking  it 
prophetic. 

After  weeping  for  a  month  in  the  soli- 
tude of  her  own  room,  where  she  would 
see  no  one,  the  poor  mother  came  forth 
at  last  with  injui^ed  eyea.  Before  losing 
her  sight  altogether  she  persisted,  in 
spite  of  the  wishes  of  her  friends,  in  visit- 
ing her  daughter's  grave.  That  image 
remained  vivid  in  the  darkness  which  now 
fell  upon  her,  as  the  red  spectrum  of  the 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


349 


last  object  upon  which  we  have  gazed 
shines  in  our  eyes  when  we  close  them  in 
full  daylight.  This  terrible  and  double 
misfortune  made  Dumay,  not  less  de- 
voted, but  more  anxious  about  Modesto, 
now  the  only  daughter  of  her  father,  al- 
though he  was  unaware  of  his  loss.  Ma- 
dame Dumay,  idolizing  Modeste,  like  all 
women  who  have  been  deprived  of  chil- 
dren, cast  her  motherliness  about  the 
girl — without,  however,  disregarding  the 
commands  of  her  husband,  who  distrust- 
ed female  intimacies.  Those  commands 
Avere  brief.  "  If  any  man,  of  any  age,  or 
any  rank  whatever,"  Dumay  had  said, 
"speaks  to  Modeste,  ogles  her,  makes 
love  to  her,  he  is  a  dead  man.  I  will 
blow  his  brains  out  and  give  myself  up  to 
the  authorities  ;  my  death  may  save  her. 
If  you  do  not  wish  to  see  my  head  cut  olT, 
you  must  take  my  place  in  watching  her 
when  I  am  obliged  to  go  out." 

For  three  years  Dumay  had  examined 
his  pistols  every  night.  He  seemed  to 
have  shared  his  oath  with  the  Pyrenean 
liounds,  two  animals  of  uncommon  sa- 
gacity. One  slept  inside  the  Chalet,  and 
the  other  was  stationed  in  a  kennel  which 
he  never  left,  and  where  he  never  barked  ; 
but  terrible  would  have  been  the  moment 
had  the  pair  made  their  teeth  meet  in 
some  unknown  adventurer. 

The  life  led  by  mother  and  daughter  at 
the  Chalet  can  readily  be  imagined .  Mon- 
sieur and  Madame  Latournelle,  often  ac- 
companied by  Gobenlieim,  came  almost 
every  evening  to  visit  their  friends  and 
play  whist.  The  conversation  turned  on 
the  gossip  of  Havre  and  the  pettj^  events 
of  provincial  life.  The  little  company 
separated  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock. 
Modeste  helped  her  motlier  to  retire,  and 
together  they  said  their  praj^ers,  spoke 
of  their  hopes,  and  talked  of  the  dear 
absent  one.  After  kissing  her  mother, 
the  girl  went  to  her  own  room  about  ten 
o'cloclc.  The  next  morning  she  prepared 
her  mother  for  the  day  with  the  same 
care,  the  same  prayers,  the  same  conver- 
sation. To  Modeste's  praise  be  it  said, 
that  from  the  day  when  the  terrible  in- 
firmity deprived  her  mother  of  her  sight, 
she  had  been  like  a  servant  to  her,  dis- 


playing at  all  times  the  same  solicitude  ; 
never  wearying  of  the  duty,  never  think- 
ing it  monotonous.  Such  constant  devo- 
tion, combined  with  a  tenderness  rare 
among  young  girls,  was  thoroughly  ap- 
preciated by  those  who  witnessed  it.  To 
the  Latournelle  family,  and  to  Monsieur 
and  Madame  Dumay,  Modeste  was,  in 
soul,  the  pearl   of  great  price. 

On  sunny  daj's,  between  breakfast  and 
dinner,  Madame  Mignon  and  Madame 
Dumay  took  a  little  walk  to  the  seashore. 
Modeste  accompanied  them,  for  two  arms 
wez-e  needed  to  support  the  blind  mother. 
About  a  month  before  the  scene  in  the 
midst  of  whicli  this  explanation  comes 
like  a  parenthesis,  Madame  Mignon  had 
taken  counsel  with  her  only  friends,  Ma- 
dame Latournelle,  the  notary,  and  Dumay, 
while  Madame  Dumay  carried  Modeste  in 
another  direction  for  a  long  walk. 

"  Listen  to  what  I  have  to  say,"  said 
the  blind  woman.  "My  daughter  is  in 
love.  I  feel  it ;  I  see  it.  There  is  a  singu- 
lar change  in  her  and  I  do  not  see  how  it 
is  that  none  of  you  have  perceived  it." 

"  In  the  name  of  all  that's  honorable—" 
cried  the  lieutenant. 

"  Don't  interrupt  me,  Dumay.  For  the 
last  two  months  Modeste  talces  as  much 
care  of  her  personal  appearance  as  if  she 
expected  to  meet  a  lover.  She  has  grown 
extremelj'^  fastidious  about  her  shoes ;  she 
wants  to  set  off  her  pretty  feet ;  she 
scolds  Madame  Gobet,  the  shoemaker. 
It  is  the  same  thing  witli  her  milliner. 
Some  days  my  poor  darling  is  anxious 
and  watchful,  as  if  she  expected  some 
one.  Her  voice  has  curt  tones  when  she 
answers  a  question,  as  though  she  wei'e 
interrupted  in  tlie  current  of  her  thoughts 
and  secret  expectations.  Then,  when  this 
awaited  lover  comes — " 

"  Good  heavens  !  " 

"  Sit  down,  Dumaj',"  said  the  blind 
woman.  "  Well,  then  Modeste  is  gay. 
Oh  !  she  is  not  gay  to  your  sight ;  j'ou 
cannot  catch  these  gradations  ;  they  are 
too  deUcate  for  eyes  that  see  only  the 
outside  of  nature.  Her  gayety  betrays 
itself  to  me  by  the  tones  of  her  voice,  by 
certain  accents  which  I  alone  can  catch 
and  understand.     Modeste  then,  instead 


350 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


of  sitting-  still  and  thoughtful,  gives  vent 
to  an  inward  activity  by  impulsive  move- 
ments— in  short,  she  is  happy.  There  is 
a  grace,  a  charm  in  the  very  ideas  she 
utters.  Ah,  my  friends,  I  know  happi- 
ness as  well  as  I  know  sorrow.  By  the 
kiss  my  Modesto  gives  me  I  can  guess 
what  is  passing  within  her.  I  know 
whether  she  has  received  what  she  was 
looking  for,  or  whether  she  is  uneasy  and 
expectant.  There  are  many  shades  in  a 
kiss,  even  in  that  of  an  innocent  young 
girl.  Modeste  is  innocence  itself ;  but 
hers  is  now  the  innocence  of  knowledge, 
not  of  ignorance.  I  may  be  blind,  but 
my  tenderness  is  clairvoyant,  and  I  charge 
j^ou  to  watch  over  my  daughter." 

Dumay,  now  actually  ferocious,  the 
notary',  in  the  character  of  a  man  bound 
to  ferret  out  a  mj'stery,  Madame  Latour- 
nelle,  the  deceived  chaperon,  and  Ma- 
dame Dumay,  sharing  her  husband's 
fears,  became  at  once  a  set  of  spies,  and 
Modeste  from  this  day  forth  was  never 
left  alone  for  an  instant.  Dumay  jiassed 
his  nights  under  her  window  wrapped  in 
his  cloak  like  a  jealous  Spaniard ;  but 
^\ith  all  his  military  sagacity  he  was 
unable  to  detect  the  least  suspicious 
sign.  Unless  she  loved  the  nightingales 
in  Vilqum's  park,  or  some  prince  Lutin, 
Modeste  could  have  seen  no  one,  and  could 
have  neither  given  nor  received  a  signal. 
Madame  Dumay,  who  never  went  to  bed 
till  she  knew  Modeste  was  asleep,  watched 
the  road  from  the  upper  windows  of  the 
Chalet  with  a  vigilance  equal  to  her  hus- 
band's. Under  these  eight  Argus  eyes 
the  blameless  child,  whose  least  motions 
were  studied  and  analyzed,  came  out  of 
the  ordeal  so  fully  acquitted  of  all  criminal 
conversation  that  the  four  friends  declared 
to  each  other  privately  that  Madame  Mi- 
gnon  was  foolishly  overanxious.  Madame 
Latournelle,  who  always  took  Modeste  to 
church  and  brought  her  back  again,  was 
commissioned  to  tell  the  mother  that  she 
was  mistaken  about  her  daughter. 

"  Modeste,"  she  said,  "  is  a  young  girl 
of  very  exalted  ideas ;  she  becomes  enthu- 
siastic over  the  poetry  of  one  writer  or 
the  prose  of  another.  You  were  not  able 
to  judge  the  impression  made  upon  her  by 


that  scaffold  symphony, '  The  Last  Hours 
of  a  Convict '  [the  saying  was  Butscha's, 
who  supplied  wit  to  his  benefactress  with 
a  lavish  hand] ;  but  she  seemed  to  me  all 
but  crazy  with  admiration  for  that  Mon- 
sieur Hugo.  ■  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
where  such  people  [Victor  Hugo,  Lamar- 
tine,  Byron  being  such  people  to  the  Ma- 
dame Latournelles]  get  their  ideas.  Mo- 
deste kept  talking  to  me  of  Childe  Harold, 
and  as  I  did  not  wish  to  get  the  worst  of 
the  ai'gument  I  was  silly  enough  to  ti'y 
to  read  the  thing,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
reason  with  her.  Perhaps  it  was  the 
fault  of  the  translator,  but  it  actuallj'^ 
turned  my  stomach ;  I  was  dazed ;  I 
couldn't  possibly'  finish  it.  Why,  the 
man  talks  about  comparisons  that  hov/1, 
rocks  that  vanish,  and  waves  of  war ! 
However,  as  he  is  only  a  traveling  En- 
glishman., we  must  expect  absurdities 
— though  his  are  i-eally  inexcusable.  He 
takes  you  to  Spain,  and  sets  you  in  the 
clouds  above  the  Alps,  and  makes  the 
torrents  talk,  and  the  stars ;  and  then 
there  are  too  many  virgins !  I  have  no 
patience  with  it !  Then,  after  Napoleon's 
campaigns,  we  have  sonorous  brass  and 
flaming  cannon-balls,  I'olling  along-  from 
page  to  page.  Modeste  tells  me  that  all 
that  bathos  is  put  in  by  the  translator, 
and  that  I  ought  to  read  the  book  in 
English.  But  I  certainly  shall  not  learn 
English  to  read  Lord  Byron  when  I  didn't 
learn  it  to  teach  Exupere.  I  much  prefer 
the  novels  of  Ducray-Dumenil  to  all  these 
English  romances.  I'm  too  good  a  Nor- 
man to  fall  in  love  with  foreign  things — 
above  all  when  they  come  from  England." 

Madame  Mignon,  notwithstanding  her 
melancholy,  could  not  help  smiling  at 
the  idea  of  Madame  Latournelle  reading 
Childe  Harold.  The  stern  scion  of  a  par- 
liamentary house  accepted  the  smile  as 
an  approval  of  her  doctrines. 

"And,  therefore,  my  dear  Madame 
Mignon,"  she  went  on,  "you  have  taken 
Modeste's  fancies,  which  are  nothing  but 
the  results  of  her  reading,  for  a  love- 
affair.  She  is  twenty  years  old.  Girls 
fall  in  love  with  themselves  at  that  age ; 
they  dress  to  see  themselves  well  dressed. 
I  remember  I  used  to  put  a  man's  hat  on 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


351 


my  little  sister,  who  is  now  dead,  and 
pretend  we  were  monsieur  and  madaiiie. 
You  had  a  very  happy  3'outli  in  Franli:- 
fort ;  but  let  us  be  just — Modeste  is  living' 
here  without  the  slightest  amusement. 
Her  slightest  wish  is  gratified,  it  is  true, 
but  still  she  knows  she  is  shut  up  and 
watched,  and  the  life  she  leads  would  give 
her  no  pleasures  at  all  if  it  were  not  for 
the  amusement  she  gets  out  of  her  books. 
She  loves  no  one  but  you.  You  ought  to 
be  very  glad  that  she  gets  enthusiastic 
over  the  corsairs  of  Byron  and  the  ro- 
mantic heroes  of  Walter  Scott  and  your 
own  Germans,  Egmont,  Goethe,  Werther, 
Schiller,  and  all  the  other  '  ers.'  " 

"  Well,  madame,  what  do  you  say 
to  that?"  asked  Dumay,  respectfully, 
alarmed  at  Madame  Mignon's  silence. 

'•■  Modeste  is  not  only  inclined  to  love, 
but  she  loves  some  man,"  answered  the 
mother,  obstinately. 

"Madame,  my  life  is  at  stake,  and  you 
must  allow  me — not  for  my  sake,  but  for 
my  wife,  my  colonel,  and  all  of  us — to  try 
and  find  out  whether  it  is  the  mother  or 
the  watch-dog  who  is  mistaken." 

"  It  is  you,  Dumay.  Ah !  if  I  could 
but  see  my  daug-hter  !  "  cried  the  poor 
woman. 

"  But  whom  could  she  possibly  love  ?  " 
asked  the  notary.  "  I'll  answer  for  my 
Exupere." 

"  It  can't  be  Gobenheim,"  said  Dumay, 
"  for  since  the  colonel  went  away  he  has 
not  spent  nine  hours  a  week  in  this  house. 
Besides,  he  never  thinks  of  Modeste — that 
five-franc-piece  of  a  man  !  His  uncle  Go- 
benheim-Keller  is  all  the  time  writing-  him, 
'Get  rich  enough  to  marry  a  Keller.' 
With  that  idea  in  his  mind,  there  is  no 
fear  that  he  even  knows  which  sex  Mo- 
deste belongs  to.  Those  are  the  only  men 
who  ever  come  here.  I  don't  count 
Butscha,  poor  little  hump-back  !  I  am 
very  fond  of  him.  He  is  your  Dumay, 
madame,"  he  added  to  Madame  Latour- 
nelle.  "  Butscha  knows  very  well  that  a 
mere  glance  at  Modeste  would  cost  him 
a  Breton  ducking.  Not  a  soul  has  any 
communication  with  this  house.  Madame 
Latournelle,  who  takes  Modeste  to  church 
ever  since  your — your  great  misfortune. 


madame,  has  carefully  watched  her  lately 
on  the  way  and  all  through  the  service, 
and  has  seen  nothing  suspicious.  In 
short,  if  I  must  confess  the  truth,  I  have 
myself  raked  all  the  paths  about  the 
house  every  evening  for  the  last  month, 
and  found  no  trace  of  footsteps  in  the 
morning." 

"  Rakes  are  neither  costly  nor  difficult 
to  handle,"  remarked  the  daughter  of 
Germany. 

"  But  the  dogs?  "  cried  Dumay. 

"  Lovers  know  how  to  find  philters  for 
them,"  answered  Madame  Mignon. 

"If  you  are  right,  I  might  as  well  blow 
my  brains  out,"  exclaimed  Dumay,  "for 
I  should  be  lost." 

"Why  so,  Dumay?"  said  the  bhnd 
woman. 

"Ah,  madame,  I  could  never  meet  my 
colonel's  eye  if  he  did  not  find  his  daugh- 
ter— particularly  now  that  she  is  his  only 
daughter — as  pure  and  virtuous  as  she 
was  when  he  said  to  me  on  the  vessel, 
'Let  no  fear  of  the  scaffold  hinder  you, 
Dumay,  if  the  honor  of  my  Modeste  is 
at  stake.'  " 

"Ah!  I  recognize  you  both  there," 
said  Madame  Mignon,  much  moved. 

"  111  wager  my  salvation  that  Modeste 
is  as  pure  as  she  was  in  her  cradle,"  ex- 
claimed Madame  Dumay. 

"Well,  I  shall  make  certain  of  it,"  re- 
plied her  husband,  "  if  Madame  la  Com- 
tesse  will  allow  me  to  employ  certain 
means ;  for  old  troopers  understand 
strategy." 

"  1  will  allow  you  to  do  anj'thing  that 
shall  enlighten  us,  if  it  does  no  injury  to 
my  last  child." 

"What  are  j^ou  going  to  do,  Anne  ?  " 
asked  Madame  Dumay ;  "  how  can  j'ou 
discover  ayounggii'l's  secret  if  she  means 
to  hide  it  ?  " 

"Obey  me,  all  of  you  !  "  cried  the  lieu- 
tenant.   "  I  shall  need  everybodj'." 

If  this  rapid  sketch  were  cleverly  de- 
veloped it  would  give  a  whole  picture  of 
manners  and  customs  in  which  many  a 
family  could  recognize  the  e^-ents  of  their 
own  history ;  but  it  must  suffice  as  it  is 
to  explain  the  importance  of  the  few  de- 
tails heretofore  given  about  persons  and 


352 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


thing's  on  the  memorable  evening-  when 
the  old  soldier  had  pitted  himself  ag-ainst 
the  young  girl,  intending  to  wrench  from 
the  recesses  of  her  heart  the  secret  of 
a  love  and  a  lover  seen  only  by  a  blind 
mother. 


An  hour  went  by  in  solemn  stillness, 
interrupted  only  by  the  cabalistic  phrases 
of  the  whist  -  players  :  "Spades!" 
"  Trumped  !  "  "  Cut !  "  "  How  are  hon- 
ors ?  "  "  Two  to  four."  "  Whose  deal  ?  " 
— phrases  which  represent  in  these  days 
the  intense  emotions  of  European  aristoc- 
racy. Modeste  continued  to  work,  with- 
out apparently  wondering  at  her  mother's 
silence.  Madame  Mignon's  handkerchief 
slipped  from  her  lap  to  the  floor  ;  Butscha 
darted  forward  to  pick  it  up,  and  as  he 
returned  it  he  whispered  in  Modeste's  ear, 
"Take  care  !"  Modeste  raised  a  pair  of 
wondering  eyes,  whose  puzzled  glance 
filled  the  poor  cripple  with  joy  unspeak- 
able. "  She  is  not  in  love  !"  he  whispered 
to  himself,  rubbing  his  hands  until  he 
nearly  rubbed  the  skin  off.  Just  then 
Exupere  tore  through  the  garden  and 
the  house,  plung-ed  into  the  salon  like 
an  avalanche,  and  said  to  Dumay  in  an 
audible  whisper,  "The  young-  man  is 
here  !  "  Dumay  sprang  for  his  pistols 
and  rushed  out. 

"  Good  God  !  suppose  he  kills  him  !  " 
cried  Madame  Dumay,  bursting  into  tears. 

"What  is  the  matter  ?"  asked  Modeste, 
looking  innocently  at  her  friends  and  not 
betraying  the  slightest  fear. 

"It  is  all  about  a  young  man  who  is 
hanging  round  the  house,"  cried  Madame 
Latournelle. 

"Well!"  said  Modeste,  "why  should 
Dumay  kill  him?" 

" Sancta  simplicita!"  ejaculated  But- 
scha, looking  at  his  master  as  proudly  as 
Alexander  contemplates  Babylon  in  Le- 
brun's  picture. 

"Where  are  you  going,  Modeste?" 
asked  the  mother  as  her  daughter  rose 
to  leave  the  room. 

"  To  get  ready  for  your  bedtime,  mam- 


ma," answered  Modeste,  in  a  voice  as 
pui-e  as  the  tones  of  a  harmonica. 

"  You  haven't  paid  your  expenses," 
said  the  dwarf  to  Dumay  when  he  re- 
turned. 

"Modeste  is  as  pure  as  the  Virg-in  on 
our  altar,"  cried  Madame  Latournelle. 

"  Good  God  !  such  excitements  wear 
me  out,"  said  Dumay;  "and  yet  I'm  a 
strong-  man." 

"  May  I  lose  twenty-five  sous  if  I  under- 
stand a  word  of  what  you  are  saying-," 
remarked  Gobenheim.  "'  You  act  as  if 
you  were  crazy." 

"  And  yet  it  is  all  about  a  treasure," 
said  Butscha,  standing-  on  tip-toe  to  whis- 
per in  Gobenheim 's  ear. 

"Dumay,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  am 
still  almost  sure  of  what  I  told  j"ou,"  per- 
sisted Madame  Mignon. 

"It  is  for  you,  now,  to  prove  that  we 
are  mistaken,  madame,"  said  Dumay 
calmly. 

Discovering-  that  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion w^as  only  Modeste's  honor,  Goben- 
heim took  his  hat,  bowed,  and  walked  off, 
carrying-  his  ten  sous  with  him — there  be- 
ing- evidentlj'  no  hope  of  another  rubber. 

"  Exupere,  and  you,  too,  Butscha,  may 
leave  us,"  said  Madame  Latournellei 
"  Go  back  to  Havre ;  you  will  g-et  there 
n  time  for  the  last  piece  at  the  theater. 
I'll  pay  for  your  tickets." 

When  the  four  friends  were  alone  with 
Madame  Mignon,  Madame  Latournelle, 
after  looking-  at  Dumay,  who  being  a  Bre- 
ton understood  the  mother's  obstinacy, 
and  at  her  husband  who  was  playing- 
with  the  cards,  felt  herself  authorized  to 
speak. 

"  Come,  Madame  Mignon,  tell  us  what 
decisive  thing  has  come  into  your  mind." 

"  Ah,  my  good  friend,  if  you  were  a 
musician  you  would  have  undei-stood  Mo- 
deste's language  as  I  do,  when  she  speaks 
of  love." 

The  piano  of  Mignon's  daughters  was 
among  the  few  articles  of  furniture  which 
had  been  moved  from  the  town  house  to 
the  Chalet.  Modeste  sometimes  con- 
jured away  her  weariness  by  practicing, 
without  a  master.  She  was  a  born  mu- 
sician, and  played  to  enliven  her  mother. 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


353 


She  sang-  by  nature,  and  loved  the  Ger- 
man airs  which  her  mother  taught  her. 
From  these  lessons  and  these  attempts  at 
self-instruction  came  a  phenomenon  not 
uncommon  to  natures  with  a  musical  vo- 
cation ;  Modeste  composed,  as  far  as  a 
pereon  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  harmonj' 
can  he  said  to  compose,  tender  little  lyric 
melodies.  Melody  is  to  music  what  im- 
agery and  sentiment  are  to  poetry,  a 
flower  that  may  blossom  spontaneously. 
Nations  have  had  melodies  before  har- 
mony— botany  came  later  than  flowers. 
In  like  manner,  Modeste,  who  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  painter's  art  except  what  she 
had  seen  her  sister  do  in  water-color, 
would  have  stood  subdued  and  fascinated 
before  the  pictures  of  Raphael,  Titian, 
Rubens,  Murillo,  Rembrandt,  Albert  Dii- 
rer,  Holbein — the  great  ideals  of  many 
lands.  Lately,  for  at  least  a  month,  Mo- 
deste had  warbled  the  songs  of  nightin- 
gales, attempts  whose  poetry  and  meaning 
had  roused  the  attention  of  her  mother, 
already  surprised  by  her  sudden  eagerness 
for  composition  and  her  fancy  for  putting 
airs  to  unknown  words. 

"  If  your  suspicions  have  no  other 
foundation,"  said  Latournelle  to  Madame 
Mignon,  '"'I  pity  your  susceptibility." 

"When  a  Breton  girl  sings,"  said  Du- 
may,  gloomily,  "the  lover  is  not  far  off." 

"  I  will  let  you  hear  Modeste  when  she 
is  improvising,"  said  the  mother,  '•  and 
you  shall  judge  for  yourselves — " 

"Poor  girl!"  said  Madame  Dumay, 
"if  she  only  knew  our  anxiety  she  would 
be  deeply  distressed  ;  she  would  tell  us 
the  truth — especially  if  she  knew  what  it 
means  for  Dumay." 

"  My  friends,  I  will  question  my  daugh- 
ter to-morrow,"  said  Madame  Mignon  ; 
"  perhaps  I  shall  obtain  more  b.y  ten- 
derness than  you  have  discovered  by 
trickery." 

Was  the  comedy  of  the  "  Fille  mal 
Gardee "  being  played  here  —  as  it  is 
everywhere  and  forever — under  the  noses 
of  these  faithful 'spies,  these  honest  Bar- 
tholos,  these  vigilant  Pyrenean  hounds, 
without  their  being  able  to  ferret  out, 
detect,  nor  even  surmise  the  lover,  the 
love  affair,  the  smoke  of  the  fire.    It  was 

Balzac — L 


not  the  result  of  a  struggle  between  the 
jailers  and  the  prisoner,  between  the  des- 
potism of  a  dungeon  and  the  liberty  of  a 
victim — it  was  simply  the  never-ending 
repetition  of  the  first  scene  played  when 
the  curtain  of  Creation  rose ;  it  was  Eve 
in  Paradise. 

And  now,  which  of  the  two,  the  mother 
or  the  watch-dog,  was  right  ? 

None'  of  the  persons  who  were  about 
Modeste  could  undei-stand  that  maiden 
heart — for  the  soul  and  the  face  were  in 
harmon3\  The  girl  had  transported  her 
existence  into  a  world  as  much  denied  and 
disbelieved  in  in  these  days  of  ours  ^s  the 
new  world  of  Christopher  Columbus  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  Fortunately,  she 
kept  her  own  counsel,  or  they  would  have 
thought  her  crazy.  But  first  we  must 
explain  the  influence  of  the  past  upon  her 
nature. 

Two  events  had  formed  the  soul  and 
developed  the  intelligence  of  this  young 
girl.  Monsieur  and  Madame  Mignon, 
warned  by  the  fate  that  had  overtaken 
Caroline,  had  resolved,  just  before  the 
failure,  to  marry  Modeste.  They  had 
chosen  the  son  of  a  rich  banker,  formerly 
of  Hamburg,  but  established  in  Havre 
since  1815 — a  man,  moreover,  who  was 
under  obligations  to  them.  This  young 
man,  whose  name  was  Francisque  Althor, 
the  dandy  of  Havre,  endowed  with  a  cer- 
tain vulgar  beauty  in  which  the  middle 
classes  delight,  well-made,  well-fleshed, 
and  with  a  fine  complexion,  abandoned  his 
betrothed  so  hastily  on  the  day  of  her 
father's  failure  that  neither  Modeste  nor 
her  mother  nor  either  of  the  Dumays  had 
seen  him  since.  Latournelle  had  ventured 
a  question  on  the  subject  to  Jacob  Althor, 
the  father  ;  but  he  had  onlj'  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  replied,  "  I  really  don't 
know  what  you  mean." 

This  answer,  told  to  Modeste  in  order 
to  give  her  experience,  was  a  lesson  which 
she  learned  all  the  more  readily  because 
Latournelle  and  Dumay  made  many  and 
long  comments  on  the  cowardly  desertion. 
The  daughters  of  Charles  Mignon,  like 
spoiled  children,  had  all  their  wishes  grat- 
ified ;  they  rode  on  horseback,  kept  their 
own  horses  and  grooms,  and  otherwise 


354 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


enjoyed  a  perilous  liberty.  Seeing  herself 
in  possession  of  an  official  lover,  Modcste 
had  allowed  Francisque  to  kiss  her  hand, 
and  take  her  by  the  waist  to  mount  her. 
She  accepted  his  flowers  and  all  the  little 
proofs  of  tenderness  with  which  a  lover  is 
provided  ;  she  even  worked  him  a  purse, 
believing-  in  such  tics — strong  indeed  to 
noble  souls,  but  cobwebs  for  tlie  Goben- 
heims,  the  Vilquins,  and  the  Altho'rs. 

In  the  spring-  which  followed  the  re- 
moval of  Madame  Mig-iion  and  her  daugh- 
ter to  the  Chalet,  Francisque  Althor  came 
to  dine  with  the  Vilquins.  Happening  to 
see  IVIodeste  over  tlie  wall  at  the  foot  of 
the  lawn,  he  turned  away  his  head.  Six 
weeks  later  he  married  the  eldest  Made- 
moiselle Vilquin.  In  tliis  way  Modesto, 
young,  beautiful,  and  of  high  birth,  learn- 
ed the  lesson  that  for  tliree  months  she 
had  been  nothing  more  than  Mademoiselle 
Million.  Her  well-known  povert 3^  became 
a  sentinel  defending  the  approaches  to  the 
Chalet  fully  as  well  as  the  prudence  of 
the  Dumaj's,  or  the  vigilance  of  the  La* 
tournelles.  The  talk  of  the  town  ran  for 
a  time  on  Mademoiselle  Mignon's  posi- 
tion only  to  insult  her  with  such  speeches 
as : 

"Poor  girl  !  what  will  become  of  her? 
— an  old  maid,  of  course." 

"  What  a  fate  !  to  have  had  the  world 
at  her  feet ;  to  have  had  the  chance  to 
marry  Francisque  Althor— and  now,  no- 
body willing  to  take  her  !  " 

"After  a  life  of  luxury',  to  come  down 
to  such  poverty- — " 

And  these  insults  were  not  uttered  in 
secret  or  left  to  Modeste's  imagination; 
she  heard  them  spoken  more  than  once  by 
the  young  men  and  women  of  Havre  as 
thej'  walked  to  Ingouville,  and,  knowing 
that  Madame  Mignon  and  her  daughter 
lived  at  the  Chalet,  talked  of  them  as 
they  passed  the  prettj'  little  house. 
Friends  of  the  Vilquins  expressed  surprise 
that  the  mother  and  daughter  were  will- 
ing to  live  on  in  the  midst  of  the  scenes 
of  their  former  splendor.  From  behind 
her  closed  blinds  Modeste  sometimes  heard 
such  insolence  as  this  : — 

"I  don't  see  how  they  can  live  there," 
some  one  would  say  as  he  paced  the  villa 


lawn — perhaps  to  assist  Vilquin  in  getting       | 
rid  of  his  tenant. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  they  live  on  ? 
What  can  they  do  there  ?  " 

"I  am  told  the  old  woman  has  become 
blind." 

"  Is  Mademoiselle  Mignon  still  prettj'  ? 
Dear  me,  how  dashing-,  she  used  to  be  ! 
Well,  she  hasn't  any  horses  now." 

Most  young  girls  on  liearing  these  spite- 
ful and  silly  speeches,  born  of  an  envy 
that  now  rushed,  peevish  and  driveling, 
to  avenge  the  past,  would  have  felt  the 
blood  mount  to  their  foreheads ;  others 
would  have  wept;  some  would  have  grown 
angry;  but  Modeste  smiled,  as  we  smile 
at  the  theater  while  listening  to  the 
actors.  Her  pride  could  not  descend  to 
the  level  of  such  speeches. 

The  other  event  was  more  serious  than 
this  mercantile  cowai-dice.  Bettina  Caro- 
line died  in  the  arms  of  her  younger  sis- 
ter, who  had  nursed  her  with  the  devotion 
of  girlhood,  and  the  curiosity  of  an  un- 
tainted imagination.  In  the  silence  of 
long-  nights  the  sisters  exchanged  many 
confidences.  With  what  dramatic  inter- 
est was  poor  Bettina  invested  in  the  eyes 
of  the  innocent  Modeste  !  Bettina  knew 
passion  through  sorrow  only,  and  she 
was  dj'ing  because  she  had  loved.  To 
young  girls  every  man,  scoundrel  though 
he  be,  is  still  a  lover.  Passion  is  the  one 
thing  absolutely  real  in  the  things  of  life, 
and  it  insists  on  its  supremacy.  Georges 
d'Estourny,'  gamblei',  criminal,  a^id  de- 
bauchee, remained  alwaj's  in  the  memorj' 
of  the  sisters,  the  elegant  Parisian  of  the 
fetes  of  Havre,  the  admired  of  the  wo- 
menkind  (Bettina  believed  she  had  car- 
ried him  off  from  the  coquettish  Madamt! 
Vilquin),  and  Bettina's  happy  lover.  Such 
adoration  in  young  gii-ls  is  stronger  than 
all  social  condemnations.  To  Bettina's 
thinking,  justice  had  been  deceived j  if 
not,  how  could  it  have  condemned  a  man 
who  had  loved  her  for  six  months  ? — loveil 
her  to  distraction  in  the  m^-sterious  re- 
treat to  which  Georges  had  taken  her  in 
Paris — that  he  might  be  at  liberty  to  go 
his  own  way.  Thus  the  dying  girl  had 
inoculated  her  sister  with  love.  They 
had  often  talked  of  the  great  drama  of 


MODESTE    MlGNOy. 


355 


passion  which  imagination  still  further 
enhances ;  and  Bettina  carried  with  her 
to  the  i;Tave  her  sister's  purity,  leaving 
her,  if  not  informed,  at  least  devoured 
with  curiosity. 

Nevertheless,  remorse  had  set  its  fangs 
too  sharply  in  Bettina's  heart  not  to  force 
her  to  warn  her  sister.  In  the  midst  of 
her  own  confessions  she  had  never  failed 
to  preach  duty  and  implicit  obedience  to 
Modeste.  On  the  evening  of  her  death 
she  implored  her  to  remember  the  tears 
that  soaked  her  pillow,  and  not  to  imitate 
a  conduct  which  so  much  suffering  could 
scarcely  expiate.  Bettina  accused  her- 
self of  having  brought  a  curse  upon  the 
family,  and  died  in  despair  at  being  un- 
able to  obtain  iier  father's  pardon.  Not- 
withstanding the  consolations  of  religion, 
softened  by  sucli  repentance,  she  cried  in 
heartrending  tones  with  her  latest  breath  : 
'•  O  father  !  father  !  "  "Never  give  your 
heart  without  your  hand,"  she  said  to 
Modeste  an  hour  before  she  died  ;  "and 
above  all,  accept  no  attentions  from  any 
man  without  the  advice  of  papa  and 
mamma.'' 

These  words,  so  earnest  in  their  truth, 
uttered  in  the  hour  of  death,  had  more 
effect  upon  Modeste  than  if  Bettina  had 
exacted  a  solemn  oath.  The  dying  girl, 
farseeing  as  a  prophet,  drew  from  be- 
neath her  pillow  a  ring-  which  she  had 
sent  by  hef  faithful  maid,  Frangoise 
Cochet,  to  be  engraved  in  Havre  with 
these  words,  "Think  of  Bettina,  1827." 
A  few  moments  before  she  drew  her  last 
breath  she  placed  it  on  her  sister's  finger, 
begging  her  to  keep  it  there  until  she 
married.  Thus  there  had  been  between 
these  two  young  g'irls  a  strange  commin- 
gling of  bitter  remorse  and  the  artless 
visions  of  a  fleeting  springtime  too  early 
blighted  by  the  keen  north  wind  of  deser- 
tion ;  3'et  their  tears,  regrets,  and  mem- 
ories were  always  subordinate  to  their 
horror  of  evil. 

Nevertheless,  this  drama  of  the  poor 
young  girl  returning  to  die  under  a  roof 
of  elegant  poverty,  the  failure  of  her  fa- 
ther, the  baseness  of  her  betrothed,  and 
the  blindness  of  her  mother,  had  touched 
onh'  the  surface    of    Modestc's  life,   by 


which  alone  the  Duraays  and  the  La- 
tournelles  judged  her ;  for  no  devotion  of 
friends  can  take  the  place  of  a  mother's 
eye.  The  monotonous  life  in  the  dainty 
little  Chalet,  surrounded  by  the  choice 
flowers  which  Dumay  cultivated  ;  the 
family  customs,  as  regular  as  clock- 
work, the  provincial  decorum,  the  games 
at  whist  while  the  mother  knitted  and 
the  daughter  sewed,  the  silence,  broken 
only  by  the  roar  of  the  sea  in  the  equi- 
noctial storms — all  this  monastic  tran- 
quillity concealed  an  inner  and  tumult- 
uous life,  that  of  ideas,  of  the  spiritual 
bemg.  We  sometimes  wonder  how  it  is 
possible  for  young  girls  to  do  wrong ;  but 
those  who  do  so  have  no  blind  mother 
to  send  her  plummet  line  of  intuition  to 
the  depths  of  the  subterranean  fancies  of 
a  virgin  heart.  The  Dumays  slept  when 
Modeste  opened  her  window,  as  it  were 
to  watch  for  the  passing  of  a  man — the 
man  of  her  dreams,  the  expected  knight 
who  was  to  mount  her  behind  him  and 
ride  away  under  the  fire  of  Dumay's 
pistols. 

ilodeste  was  much  depressed  after  her 
sister's  death,  and  she  flung  herself  into 
the  practice  of  reading,  until  her  mind 
became  sodden  in  it.  Brought  up  to 
speak  two  languages,  she  was  as  pro- 
ficient in  German  as  in  PYench ;  she  had 
also,  together  with  her  sister,  learned 
English  from  Madame  Dumay.  Being 
very  little  overlooked  in  the  matter  of 
reading  by  the  people  about  her,  who 
had  no  literary  knowledge,  Modeste  fed 
her  soul  on  the  modern  masterpieces  of 
three  literatures,  English,  French,  and 
German.  Lord  Byron,  Goethe,  Schiller, 
Waiter  Scott,  Hugo,  Lamartine,  Crabbe, 
Moore,  the  great  works  of  the  17th  and 
18th  centuries,  history,  drama,  and  Ac- 
tion, from  Astreea  to  Manon  Lescaut, 
from  Montaigne's  Essays  to  Diderot, 
from  the  Fabliaux  to  the  Nouvelle  He- 
loise,  the  thoughts  of  three  lands  crowded 
with  confused  images  that  girlish  head, 
sublime  in  its  cold  guilolessnoss,  its  na- 
tive chastity,  from  which  there  sprang 
full-armed,  brilliant,  sincere,  and  strong, 
an  overwhelming  admiration  for  genius. 
To  Modeste  a  new  book  was  an  event  j  a 


356 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


masterpiece  that  would  have  horrified 
Madame  Latournelle  made  lier  happy — 
yet  sad,  if  the  great  worlt  did  not  play 
havoc  with  her  heart.  A  lyiic  instinct 
bubbled  in  that  girlish  soul,  so  full  of  the 
beautiful  illusions  of  youth.  But  of  this 
radiant  existence  not  a  gleam  reached  the 
surface  of  daily  life ;  it  escaped  Dumaj^ 
and  his  wife,  as  well  as  the  Latournelles ; 
the  ears  of  the  blind  mother  alone  caught 
the  crackling  of  its  flame. 

The  profound  disdain  which  Modeste 
now  conceived  for  ordinary  men  gave  to 
her  face  a  look  of  pride,  an  untamed  shj'- 
ness,  which  tempered  her  Teutonic  sim- 
plicity, and  accorded  well  with  a  peculiar- 
ity of  her  head.  The  hair  growing  in  a 
point  above  the  forehead  seemed  the  con- 
tinuation of  a  slight  line  which  tliought 
had  ah'cady  furrowed  between  the  eye- 
brows, and  made  the  expression  of  un- 
tamability  perhaps  a  shade  too  strong. 
The  voice  of  this  charming  child,  whom 
her  father,  delighting  in  her  wit,  was 
wont  to  call  his  "  little  proverb  of  Sol- 
omon," had  acquired  a  wonderful  flex- 
ibility through  the  practice  of  three 
languages.  This  advantage  was  still 
further  enhanced  by  a  natural  bell-like 
tone  both  sweet  and  fresh,  which  touched 
the  heart  as  delightfully  as  it  did  the 
ear.  If  the  mother  could  no  longer  see 
the  signs  of  a  noble  destiny  upon  her 
daugliter's  brow,  she  could  study  the 
transitions  of  her  soul's  development  in 
the  accents  of  that  voice  attuned  to  love. 


VI. 


To  the  insatiable  period  of  Modeste's 
reading  succeeded  the  exercise  of  that 
strange  faculty  with  which  lively  im- 
aginations are  endowed  —  the  power  of 
making  herself  an  actor  in  a  dream-ex- 
istence ;  of  representing  to  her  own  mind 
the  things  desired  so  vividly  that  they 
seemed  actually  to  attain  reality ;  in 
short,  to  enjoy  by  thought — to  live  out 
her  years  within  her  mind ;  to  marry ; 
to  grow  old ;  to  attend  her  own  funeral 
like  Charles  V.;   to   play  within  herself 


the  comedy  of  life  and,  if  need  be,  that  of 
death.  Modeste  was  plajdng  by  herself 
the  comedy  of  Love.  She  fancied  herself 
adored  to  the  summit  of  her  wishes 
throughout  all  phases  of  social  life. 
Sometimes  as  the  heroine  of  a  dark  ro- 
mance, she  loved  the  executioner,  or  some 
wretch  who  ended  his  da^'s  upon  the  scaf- 
fold, or,  like  her  sister,  a  Parisian  dandy 
without  a  penny,  whose  struggles  were 
all  beneath  a  garret-roof.  Sometimes 
she  was  Ninon,  scorning  men  amid 
continual  fetes ;  or  some  applauded  act- 
ress, or  gaj'  adventuress,  exhausting  the 
luck  of  Gil  Bias,  or  the  triumphs  of 
Pasta,  Malibran,  and  .Florine.  Then, 
weary  of  horrors  and  excitements,  she 
returned  to  actual  life.  She  man-ied  a 
notary,  she  eat  the  plain  brown  bread  of 
an  honest  life,  she  saw  h(jrself  a  Madame 
Latournelle;  she  accepted  a  jDainful exist- 
ence, she  bore  the  burdens  of  a  bread- 
winner. After  that  she  went  back  to  the 
romances  :  she  was  loved  for  her  beauty  ; 
a  son  of  a  peer  of  France,  an  eccentric, 
artistic  young  man,  divined  her  heart, 
and  recognized  the  star  which  the  genius 
of  a  De  Stael  had  planted  on  her  brow. 
Her  father  returned,  possessing  millions. 
Authorized  by  his  experience,  she  put  her 
lovers  to  certain  tests,  while  carefully 
guarding  her  own  independence ;  she 
owned  a  magnificent  chateau,  servants, 
horses,  carriages,  the  choicest  of  every- 
thing that  luxury  could  bestow,  and  kept 
her  suitors  uncertain  until  she  was  forty 
years  old,  at  which  age  she  made  her 
choice. 

This  edition  of  the  Arabian  Nights 
lasted  nearly  a  year,  and  taught  Modeste 
the  sense  of  satiety  through  thought. 
She  .held  her  life  too  often  in  her  hand, 
she  said  to  herself  philosophically  and 
with  too  real  a  bitterness,  too  seriously, 
and  too  often,  ' '  Well,  what  comes  after- 
ward ?  "  not  to  have  plunged  to  her  waist 
in  the  deep  disgust  which  all  men  of  g-enius 
feel  when  they  try  to  extricate  themselves 
by  intense  toil  from  the  work  to  which 
they  have  devoted  themselves.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  her  youth  and  her  rich  nature, 
Modeste  would  have  entered  a  cloister. 
But  this  sense  of  satiety  cast  her,  satu- 


MODESTE    MIGNOJS'. 


357 


rated  as  she  still  was  with  Catholic  spirit- 
ualitj%  into  the  love  of  Good,  the  infinity 
of  heaven.  She  thoujjht  of  charity  as 
the  true  occupation  of  life  ;  but  she  cow- 
ered in  the  gloomy  dreariness  of  finding 
in  it  no  food  for  the  fancy  that  lay  crouch- 
ing in  her  heart  like  an  insect  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  cal^'x.  Meanwhile  she  sat  tran- 
quilly sewing  garments  for  the  children 
of  the  poor,  and  listening,  absently  to  the 
grumblings  of  Monsieur  Latournelle  when 
he  reproached  Dumay  for  "cutting  out  " 
the  thirteenth  card  or  drawing  his  last 
trump. 

Her  religious  faith  drove  Modeste  for  a 
time  into  a  singular  track  of  thought. 
She  imagined  that  if  she  became  sinless 
(speaking  ecclesiastically)  she  would  at- 
tain to  such  a  state  of  sanctity  that  God 
would  hear  her  and  accomplish  her  desires. 
"Faith,"  she  thought,  "can  remove 
mountains;  Christ  has  said  so.  The 
Saviour  led  his  apostle  upon  tlie  waters 
of  the  lake  Tiberias ;  and  I,  all  I  ask  of 
God  is  a  husband  to  love  me ;  that  is 
easier  than  walking  upon  the  sea."  She 
fasted  through  the  next  Lent,  and  did 
not  commit  a  single  sin  ;  then  she  said  to 
herself  that  on  a  certain  day  coming  out 
of  chui'ch  she  would  meet  a  handsome 
young  man  who  was  worthy  of  her,  of 
whom  her  mother  would  approve,  and 
who  would  fall  madly  in  love  with  her. 
When  the  day  came  on  which  she  had,  as 
it  wei'e,  summoned  God  to  send  her  an 
angel,  she  was  persistently^  followed  by  a 
rather  disgusting  beggar ;  moreover,  it 
rained  heavily,  and  not  a  single  young 
man  was  in  the  streets.  On  another  oc- 
casion she  went  to  walk  on  the  jetty  to 
see  the  English  travelers  land  :  but  each 
Englishman  had  an  Englishwoman,  nearly' 
as  handsome  as  Modeste  herself,  who  saw 
no  one  at  all  resembling  a  wandering 
Childe  Harold.  Tears  overcame  her,  as 
she  sat  down  like  Marius  on  the  ruins  of 
her  imagination.  But  on  the  day  when 
she  subpoenaed  God  for  the  third  time 
she  firmly  believed  that  the  Elect  of  her 
dreams  was  within  the  church,  hiding, 
perhaps  out  of  delicacjs  behind  one  of  the 
pillars,  round  all  of  which  she  dragged 
Madame  Latournelle  on  a  tour  of  inspec- 


tion. After  this  failure,  she  deposed  the 
Deity  from  omnipotence.  She  often  held 
conversations  with  this  imaginary  lover, 
inventing  questions  and  answers,  and 
bestowing  upon  him  a  great  deal  of  wit 
and  intelligence. 

The  excessive  ambition  of  her  heart, 
hidden  within  these  romances,  were  the 
real  explanation  of  the  prudent  conduct 
which  the  good  people  who  watched  over 
Modeste  so  much  admired ;  they  might 
have  brought  her  any  number  of  j'oung 
Althors  or  Vilquins,  and  she  would  never 
have  stooped  to  such  clowns.  She  wanted, 
purely  and  simply,  a  man  of  genius — talent 
seemed  to  her  a  very  small  thing  ;  just  as 
a  lawyer  is  nothing  to  a  girl  who  aims  for 
an  embassador.  She  desired  wealth,  but 
only  to  cast  it  at  the  feet  of  her  idol.  In- 
deed, the  golden  background  of  these 
visions  was  far  less  rich  than  the  treasury' 
of  her  own  heart,  filled  with  womanly 
delicacy  ;  for  its  dominant  desire  was  to 
bestow  happiness  and  wealth  upon  some 
Tasso,  some  Milton,  Jean-Jacques  Rous- 
seau, Murat,  or  Christopher  Columbus. 

Ordinary  miseries  did  not  seriously  touch 
this  youthful  soul,  who  longed  to  extin- 
guish the  fires  of  those  martyrs  who  were 
ignored  and  rejected  in  their  own  day. 
She  thirsted  for  the  unknown  sufl'erings, 
the  great  griefs  of  thought.  Sometimes 
she  imagined  balms  of  Gilead,  soothing 
melodies  which  might  have  allaj-ed  the 
savage  misanthropy  of  Eousseau.  Or  she 
fancied  herself  the  wife  of  Lord  Byron ; 
guessing  intuitively  his  contempt  for  the 
real,  she  made  herself  as  fantastic  as  the 
poetry  of  Manfred,  and  provided  for  his 
skepticism  hy  making  him  a  Catholic. 
Modeste  attributed  Moliero's  melancholy 
to  the  women  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
"■  Why  is  there  not  some  one  woman,"  she 
asked  herself,  "loving,  beautiful,  and 
rich,  ready  to  stand  beside  each  man  of 
genius  and  be  his  slave,  like  Lara,  the 
mysterious  page  ? "  She  had,  as  the 
reader  perceives,  fully  understood  ilpian- 
to,  which  the  English  poet  chanted  by  the 
mouth  of  his  Gulnare.  Modeste  greatly 
admired  the  behavior  of  the  young  En- 
glishwoman who  offered  herself  to  Cp^- 
billon,  the  son,  and   whom   he   married. 


358 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


The  ston-  of  Sterno  and  Eliza  Draper  was 
her  life  and  happiness  for  several  months. 
She  imagined  herself  the  heroine  of  a  like 
romance,  and  many  a  time  she  rehearsed 
in  imag'ination  the  sublime  role  of  Eliz:i., 
The  sensibility  so  charmingly  expressed 
in  that  delightful  correspondence  filled  her 
eyes  with  tears  which,  it  is  said,  are  lack- 
ing in  those  of  the  most  spirituel  of 
English  writers. 

Modeste  existed  for  some  time  on  a 
comprehension,  not  onlj'  of  the  works,  but 
of  the  characters  of  her  favorite  authors 
— Goldsmith,  the  author  of  Obermann, 
Charles  Nodier,  Maturin.  The  poorest 
and  the  most  suffering  among  them  were 
her  deities  ;  she  guessed  their  trials,  she 
initiated  herself  into  a  destitution  where 
the  thoughts  of  genius  brooded,  and  poured 
upon  it  the  treasures  of  her  heart ;  she 
fancied  herself  the  author  of  the  material 
well-being  of  these  great  men,  martj-rs 
to  their  own  talents.  This  noble  com- 
passion, this  intuition  of  the  struggles  of 
toil,  this  worship  of  genius,  are  among 
the  rarest  perceptions  that  ever  flutterred 
through  the  souls  of  women.  They  are, 
in  the  first  place,  a  secret  between  the 
woman  and  God,  for  they  are  hidden  ;  in 
them  there  is  nothing  striking,  nothing 
that  gratifies  the  vanit\' — that  powerful 
auxiliary  to  all  action  among  the  French. 

Out  of  this  third  period  of  the  develop- 
ment of  lier  ideas,  there  was  born  in  Mo- 
deste a  passionate  desire  to  penetrate  to 
the  heart  of  one  of  these  abnormal  beings  ; 
to  understand  the  working  of  the  thoughts 
and  the  hidden  griefs  of  genius — to  know 
not  onlj'  what  it  wanted  but  what  it  was. 
At  the  period  when  this  story  begins, 
these  vagaries  of  fancy,  these  excursions 
of  her  soul  into  the  void,  these  feelers  put 
forth  into  the  darkness  of  the  future,  the 
impatience  of  an  ungiven  love  to  reach  a 
goal,  the  nobility  of  all  her  thoughts  of 
life,  the  decision  of  her  mind  to  suffer  in 
a  sphere  of  higher  things  instead  of  flound- 
ering- in  the  marshes  of  provincial  life  like 
lier  mother,  the  pledge  she  had  made  to 
herself  never  to  fail  in  conduct,  but  to 
respect  her  father's  hearth  and  bring  it 
nothing  but  happiness — all  this  world  of 
feeling  and  sentiment  had  lately'  come  to 


a  climax  and  taken  shape.  Modeste 
wished  to  be  the  friend  and  companion 
of  a  poet,  an  artist,  a  man  in  some  waj' 
superior  to  the  crowd  of  men.  But  she 
intended  to  choose  him — not  to  give  him 
her  heart,  her  life,  her  infinite  tenderness 
freed  from  the  trammels  of  passion,  until 
she  had  carefully  and  deeply-  studied  him. 

She  began  this  pretty  romance  b^' simply 
enjoying  it.  Profound  tranquillity  settled 
down  upon  her  soul.  Her  cheeks  became 
softly  colored,  and  she  was  the  beautiful 
and  noble  image  of  Germany,  such  as  we 
have  lately  seen  her,  the  glory  of  the 
Chalet,  the  pride  of  Madame  Latournelle 
and  the  Dumays. 

Modeste  was  then  living  a  double  exist- 
ence. She  performed  with  humble,  loving 
cai'e  all  the  minute  duties  of  the  homely 
life  at  the  Chalet,  using  them  as  a  rein  to 
guide  the  poetry  of  her  ideal  life,  like  the 
Carthusian  monks  who  labor  methotlically 
on  material  things  to  leave  their  souls  the 
freer  to  develop  in  prayer.  All  great 
minds  have  bound  themselves  to  some 
form  of  mechanical  toil  in  order  to  gain 
the  greater  mastery  of  thought.  Spinosa 
ground  glasses  for  spectacles ;  Bayle 
counted  the  tiles  on  the  roof ;  Montes- 
quieu gardened.  The  bod3-  being  thus 
subdued,  the  soul  could  spread  its  wings 
in  all  security. 

Madame  Mignon,  who  could  read  her 
daughter's  soul,  was  therefore  right. 
Modeste  loved  ;  she  loved  with  that  rare 
platonic  love,  so  little  understood,  the  first 
illusion  of  a  young  girl,  the  most  delicate 
of  all  sentiments,  a  very  dainty  of  the 
heart.  She  drank  deep  draughts  from 
the  chalice  of  the  unknown,  the  impos- 
sible, the  visionary.  She  admired  the 
blue  plumage  of  that  bird  in  the  paradise 
of  young  girls,  which  sings  at  a  distance, 
which  no  hand  can  touch,  no  gun  can  coy- 
er, as  it  flits  across  the  sight ;  whose 
magic  colors,  like  sparkling  jewels,  dazzle 
the  eye,  and  which  youth  never  sees  again 
when  Reality,  the  hideous  hag,  appears 
with  witnesses  accompanied  by  the  mayor. 
To  live  the  very  poetry  of  love  nnd  not  to 
see  the  lover  —  ah,  what  sweet  intoxica- 
tion !  what  visionary  rapture  !  a  chimera 
with  flowing  mane  and  outspread  wings  ! 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


359 


The  following  is  the  puerile  and  even 
silly  event  which  decided  tlie  future  life 
of  this  3'oung-  girl. 

Modeste  saw  in  a  boolvSeller"s  window  a 
lithographic  portrait  of  one  of  her  favor- 
ites, CanaUs.  We  all  know  how  false  sucli 
pictures  are- — the  fruits  of  a  shameless 
speculation,  which  seizes  upon  the  person- 
ality of  celebrated  individuals  as  if  tlieir 
faces  were  public  property. 

In  this  instance  Canalisy  sketched  in  a 
B^'rouic  pose,  was  offering  to  public  ad- 
miration his  floating  locks,  his  bare  throat, 
and  the  unfathouiable  bi'ow  which  every 
bard  ought  to  possess.  Victor  Hugo's 
forehead  will  make  more  persons  shave 
their  heads  than  the  number  of  incipient 
marshals  ever  killed  by  the  glory  of  Napo- 
leon. This  face  (poetic  through  mei-can- 
tile  necessity)  caught  Modeste's  ej'c.  The 
day  on  which  she  bouglit  tlio  portrait  one 
of  Arthez's  best  books  happened  to  be 
publislied.  We  ai'e  compelled  to  admit, 
though  it  may  be  to  Modeste's  injury, 
that  she  hesitated  long  between  the  il- 
lustrious poet  and  the  illustrious  prose- 
writer.  Which  of  these  celebrated  men 
was  free  ? — that  was  the  question. 

Modeste  began  by  securing  the  co-opera- 
tion of  Frangoise  Cochet,  a  maid  taken 
from  Havre  and  brought  back  again  by 
poor  Bettina,  whom  Madame  Mignon  and 
Madame  Dumay  ilow  employed  by  the 
da}',  and  who  lived  in  Havre.  Modeste 
took  her  to  her  own  room  and  assured  her 
that  she  would  never  cause  her  parents 
any  grief,  and  that  she  should  never  pass 
the  limits  imposed  upon  a  j-oung  girl? 
As  to  Fran§oise  herself  she  would  be  well 
provided  for  after  the  return  of  Monsieur 
Mignon,  on  condition  tliat  slie  would  do  a 
certain  service  and  keep  it  an  inviolable 
secret.  What  was  it  ?  Why,  a  very  little 
thing — perfectly  innocent.  All  that  Mo- 
deste wanted  of  her  accomplice  was  to  put 
certain  letters  into  the  post,  and  to  bring 
back  those  which  would  be  directed  to 
Frangoise  Cochet.  The  agreement  made, 
Modeste  wrote  a  polite  note  to  Dauriat, 
publisher  of  the  poems  of  Canalis,  asking, 
in  the  interest  of  that  great  poet,  if  he 
were  married.  She  requested  the  pub- 
lisher to  address  his  answer  to  Mademoi- 


selle  Frangoise  Cochet,  paste   restante, 
Havre. 

Duriat,  incapable  of  taking  the  epistle 
seriously,  wrote  a  reply  in  presence  of 
four  or  five  journalists  who  happened  to 
be  in  his  office  at  the  time,  each  of  whom 
added  his  particular  stroke  of  wit  to  the 
production. 

"  Mademoiselle— Canalis  (Baron  of), 
Constant  Cyr  Melchior,  member  of  the 
French  Academy,  born  in  1800,  at  Canalis 
(Correze),  five  feet  four  inches  in  height, 
in  good  condition,  vaccinated,  spotless 
birth,  has  given  a  substitute  to  the  con- 
scription, enjoys  perfect  health,  owns  a 
small  patrimonial  estate  in  the  Correze, 
and  wishes  to  marry,  but  the  lady  must 
be  wealthj'. 

"  He  beareth  per  pale,  gules  an  ax 
or,  sable  three  shells  argent,  surmounted 
b}'  a  baron's  coronet ;  supporters,  two 
larches,  vert.  Motto  :  Or  et  fer  (never 
auriferous). 

"The  first  Canalis,  who  went  to  the 
Holy  Land  with  the  First  Crusade,  is 
cited  in  the  chronicles  of  Auvergne  as 
being  armed  only  with  an  ax  on  account 
of  the  family  indigence,  which  to  this  day 
weighs  heavily  on  the  race  ;  hence  the  es- 
cutcheon, without  a  doubt.  This  noble 
baron,  who  is  also  famous  for  having  dis- 
comfited avast  number  of  infidels,  died 
near  Jerusalem,  without  or  or  fer,  as 
naked  as  a  worm,  on  the  plains  of  Ascalon, 
ambulances  not  being  then  invented. 

'•  The  chateau  of  Canalis  (the  domain 
yields  a  few  chestnuts)  consists  of  two 
dismantled  towers,  united  by  a  piece  of 
wall  covered  by  a  fine  ivj',  and  is  taxed  at 
twenty-two  francs. 

"  The  undersigned  (publisher)  calls  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  he  pays  ten  thou- 
sand francs  for  every  volume  of  poetry 
written  by  Monsieur  de  Canalis,  who  does 
not  give  his  shells  for  nothing. 

"  The  singer  of  the  Correze  lives  in  the 
Rue  de  Paradis-Poissoniere,  number  29, 
which  is  a  highly  suitable  location  for  a 
poet  of  the  angelic  school. 

"Several  noble  ladies  of  the  Faubourg' 
Saint-Germain  are  said  to  take  the  path 
to   Paradise   and    protect   its   god.     The 


3G0 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


king,  Charles  X.,  thinks  so  highly  of 
this  great  poet  as  to  believe  him  capable 
of  helling  to  govern  tlie  country  ;  lie  has 
lately  made  him  offlcer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  and  (what  pays  him  better)  presi- 
dent of  the  court  of  Claims  at  the  foreign 
office.  These  functions  do  not  hinder  this 
great  genius  from  drawing  an  annuity  of 
three  thousand  francs  out  of  the  fund  for 
the  encouragement  of  arts  and  belles  let- 
tres.  This  monetary  success  has  occa- 
sioned in  literatui-e  an  eighth  plague 
which  Egypt  escaped — that  of  verses. 
"  The  last  edition  of  the  works  of 
Canalis,  printed  on  vellum,  royal  8vo, 
from  the  press  of  Didot,  with  illustra- 
tions by  Bixiou,  Joseph  Bridau,  Schinner, 
Sommervieux,  etc.,  is  in  five  volumes, 
price,  nine  francs  j)ost-paid." 

This  letter  fell  like  a  cobble-stone  on  a 
tulip.  A  poet,  secretary  of  claims,  get- 
ting a  stipend  in  a  public  office,  drawing 
an  annuity,  seeking  a  decoration,  adored 
by  the  women  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain — was  that  the  muddy  minstrel 
lingering  along  the  quaj's,  sad,  dreamy, 
worn  with  toil,  and  re-entering  his  garret 
fraught  with  poetry  ?  However,  Modeste 
perceived  the  irony  of  the  envious  book- 
seller, who  said  :  "  I  invented  Canalis  ; 
I  made  Nathan  !  "  Besides,  she  re-read 
her  hero's  poems — verses  extremely  se- 
ductive, and  full  of  hj^pocrisy,  which 
require  a  word  of  analysis,  were  it  only 
to  explain  her  infatuation. 

Canalis  may  be  distinguished  from 
Lamartine,  chief  of  the  angelic  school, 
by  a  wheedling  tone  like  that  of  a  sick- 
nurse,  a  treacherous  sweetness  and  a 
delightful  discipline.  The  chief  with  his 
strident  cry  is  an  eagle ;  Canalis,  rose 
and  white,  is  a  flamingo.  In  him  women 
find  the  friend  they  seek,  their  interpre- 
ter, and  a  safe  confidant ;  a  being  who 
understands  them,  and  who  explains  them 
to  themselves.  The  wide  margins  given 
by  Dauriat  to  the  last  edition  were 
crowded  with  Modeste's  penciled  senti- 
ments, expressing  her  sympathy  with 
this  tender  and  dreamy  spirit.  Canalis 
did  not  possess  the  gift  of  life;  he  could 
not  breathe  existence  into  his  creations  ; 


but  he  knew  how  to  calm  vague  suffer- 
ings like  those  which  assailed  Modeste. 
He  .spoke  to  j'ouhg  girls  in  their  own 
language  ;  he  could  allay  the  anguish  of 
a  bleeding  wound  and  lull  the  moans  and 
sobs  of  woe.  His  gift  did  not  lie  in  stir- 
ring- words,  nor  in  the  remedy  of  strong 
emotions  ;  he  contented  himself  with  say- 
ing in  harmonious  tones  which  compelled 
belief,  "  I  suffer  with  you ;  I  understand 
you  ;  ceme  with  me  ;  let  us  weep  together 
beside  the  brook,  beneath  the  willows." 
And  they  followed  him !  They  listened 
to  his  empty  and  sonorous  poetry  like 
infants  to  a  nurse's  lullaby.  Canalis, 
like  Nodier,  enchanted  the  reader  by  an 
artlessness  which  was  genuine  in  the 
prose  writer  and  artificial  in  the  poet ; 
by  his  tact,  his  smile,  the  shedding  of  his 
rose-leaves,  and  his  infantile  philosophy'. 
He  counterfeited  so  well  the  language  of 
early  youth  that  he  led  one  back  to  the 
prairie-land  of  illusions.  We  can  be  piti- 
less to  the  eagles,  requiring  from  them 
the  quality  of  the  diamond,  incorruptible 
perfection ;  but  as  for  Canalis,  we  take 
him  for  what  he  is  and  let  the  rest  go. 
He  seems  a  good  fellow  ;  the  affectations 
of  the  ang'elic  school  have  given  him  suc- 
cess, just  as  a  woman  succeeds  when  she 
plays  the  ingenue  cleverly,  and  simulates 
surprise,  youth,  innocence  betraj^ed,  the 
wounded  angel. 

Modeste,  recovering  her  first  impres- 
sions, renewed  her  confidence  in  that 
soul  and  in  that  countenance  as  ravish- 
ing as  the  face  of  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre.  She  paid  no  further  attention 
to  the  publisher.  And  so,  about  the 
beginning  of  the  month  of  August  she 
wrote  the  following  letter  to  this  Dorat 
of  the  sacristy,  who  still  ranks  as  a  star 
of  the  modern  Pleiades. 

"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis— I  have 
often  wished  to  write  to  you,  monsieur, 
to  tell  you  how  much  I  admire  your 
genius.  I  feel  the  need  of  expressing  to 
you  the  admii'ation  of  a  poor  country 
girl,  lonely  in  her  little  corner,  whose 
only  happiness  is  to  read  3'our  thoughts. 
I  have  read  Rene,  and  I  come  to  you. 
Sadness  leads    to    reverie.     How    many 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


361 


other  women  are  sending  you  the  liom- 
ag-e  of  their  secret  thoug-lits  ?  What 
chance  have  I  for  notice  among  so  many  ? 
What  will  this  paper,  filled  with  my  soul, 
be  to  you,  any  more  than  the  perfumed 
letters  which  already  beset  you.  I  am 
more  at  a  disadvantage  than  any  others, 
for  I  wish  to  remain  unknown  and  yet  to 
receive  j'our  entire  confidence — as  though 
you  had  long  known  me. 

"  Answer  my  letter  and  be  friendly 
with  me.  I  cannot  promise  to  make  my- 
self known  to  you,  though  I  do  not  posi- 
tiv-ely  say  I  will  not  some  day  do  so. 

"What  shall  I  add?     Do  you  see  the 

effort  which  it  has  been  to  me  to  write 

this  letter  ?    Permit  me  to  offer  you  my 

hand — that  of  a  friend,  ah  !  a  true  friend. 

"  Your  servant,        O.  d'Este  M. 

"  P.  S. — If  you  do  me  the  favor  to  an- 
swer this  letter  address  your  repfy,  if  you 
please,  to  Mademoiselle  F.  Cochet,  poste 
restante,  Havre." 


VII. 


All  young  girls,  whether  romantic  or 
otherwise,  can  imagine  with  what  impa- 
tience Modeste  lived  through  the  next 
few  days.  The  air  was  full  of  tongues 
of  fire.  The  trees  were  like  a  plumage. 
She  was  not  conscious  of  a  body ;  she 
hovered  in  space,  the  earth  flew  from 
beneath  her  feet.  Full  of  admiration  for 
the  post-office,  she  followed  her  little 
sheet  of  paper  on  its  way ;  she  was 
happy,  as  we  all  are  happy  at  twenty 
years  of  age,  in  the  first  exercise  ,of  our 
will.  She  was  possessed,  as  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  She  imagined  the  poet's  study; 
she  saw  him  unsealing  her  letter ;  and 
then  followed  myriads  of  suppositions. 

After  sketching  the  poetry  we  cannot 
do  less  than  give  the  profile  of  the  poet. 
Canalis  was  a  short,  spare  man,  with  an 
air  of  good-breeding,  a  dark-complex- 
ioned, moon-shaped  face,  and  rather  a 
small  head  like  that  of  a  man  who  has 
more  vanity  than  pride.  He  loved  luxury, 
rank,  and  splendor.  Money  was  of  more 
importance,  to  him  than  to   most  men. 


Proud  of  his  birth,  even  more  than  of  his 
talent,  he  destroyed  the  value  of  his  an- 
cestors by  making  too  many  pretensions 
— after  all,  the  Canalis  are  not  Navar- 
reins,  nor  Cadignans,  nor  Grandlieus,  nor 
Negrepelisses. 

Nature,  however,  helped  him  out  in  his 
pretensions.  He  had  those  eyes  of  East- 
ern effulgence  which  we  demand  in  a  poet, 
a  delicate  charm  of  manner,  and  a  vibrant 
voice  ;  yet  a  natural  charlatanism  almost 
destroyed  the  effect  of  all  these  advan- 
tages. He  was  a  bom  comedian.  He 
put  forward  his  well-shaped  foot,  because 
the  attitude  had  become  a  habit ;  he  used 
exclamatory  terms  because  they  were  a 
part  of  himself ;  he  posed  dramatically, 
because  he  had  made  that  deportment  his 
second  nature.  Such  defects  as  these  are 
not  incompatible  with  a  general  benevo- 
lence and  a  certain  quality  of  errant  and 
purely  ideal  chivalry,  which  distinguishes 
the  paladin  from  the  knight.  Canalis 
had  not  devotion  enough  for  a  Don 
Quixote,  but  he  had  too  much  elevation 
of  thought  not  to  put  himself  on  the 
nobler  side  of  questions  and  things.  His 
poetry,  which  took  the  town  by  storm  on 
all  occasions,  reallj'  injured  the  man  as  a 
poet;  for  he  was  not  without  mind,  but 
his  talent  prevented  him  from  developing 
it;  he  was  overweighted  by  his  reputa- 
tion, while  aiming  to  appear  greater  than 
it.  Thus,  as  often  happens,  the  man  was 
entirely  out  of  accord  with  the  products 
of  his  thought.  The  author  of  these  naive, 
caressing,  tender  little  lyrics,  these  calm 
idyls  pui-e  and  cold  as  the  surface  of  a  lake, 
these  verses  so  essentially  feminine,  was 
an  ambitious  little  creature  in  a  tightly 
buttoned  frock-coat,  with  the  air  of  a 
diplomat  seeking  political  influence,  redo- 
lent of  the  musk  of  aristocracy',  full  of 
pretension,  thirsting  for  a  fortune,  in 
order  to  possess  the  income  necessary  to 
his  ambition,  already  spoiled  b3'  a  double 
success,  the  crowns  of  myrtle  and  of 
laurel.  He  had  a  Government  situation 
worth  eight  thousand  francs,  three  thou- 
sand francs'  annuit\'  from  the  literary 
fund,  two  thousand  from  the  Academy, 
three  thousand  more  from  the  paternal 
estate   (less  the  taxes  and  the  cost  of 


362 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


keeping'  it  in  order) — a  total  fixed  income 
of  fifteen  thousand  francs,  plus  the  ten 
thousand  broug-ht  in  each  j'cai',  on  an 
average,  by  liis  poetry  ;  in  all  twenty-five 
thousand  francs.  And  all  this  was  for 
Modestc's  hero  so  jirecarious  and  iiisuffl- 
cient  an  income  thai  he  usually  spent  from 
five  to  six  thousand  francs  more  every 
year  ;  but  the  king's  privy  purse  and  the 
secret  funds  of  the  foreign  office  had 
hitherto  supplied  the  deficit.  He  wrote 
a  hymn  for  the  king's  coronation  which 
earned  him  a  whole  silver  service — having 
refused  a  sum  of  money  on  the  ground 
that  a  Canalis  owed  his  duty  to  the  sov- 
ereign. 

But  about  this  time  Canalis  had ,  as  the 
joui-nalists  say,  exhausted  his  budget.  He 
felt  himself  unable  to  invent  any  new 
form  of  poetry ;  his  Ij're  did  not  have 
seven  strings  ;  it  had  only  one  ;  and  hav- 
ing played  on  that  one  string  so  long,  the 
public  allowed  him  no  other  alternative 
than  to  hang  himself  with  it,  or  to  be 
silent.  De  Marsaj',  who  did  not  like 
Canalis,  made  a  remark  whose  poisoned 
shaft  touched  the  poet  to  the  quick  of  his 
vanity.  "Canalis,"  he  said,  "  always  re- 
minds me  of  that  brave  man  whom  Fred- 
erick the  Great  called  up  anil  commended 
after  a  battle  because  his  trumpet  had 
never  ceased  tooting  its  one  little  tune." 
Canalis  desired  to  become  a  politician, 
and  he  made  capital  of  a  journey  he  had 
taken  to  Madrid  as  secretary  to  the  em- 
bassy of  the  Due  de  Chaulieu  ;  though  it 
was  really  made,  according  to  Parisian 
gossip,  in  the  capacity  of  "  attache  to  the 
duchess."  How  many  times  a  sarcasm 
or  a  single  speech  has  decided  a  man's 
life. 

CoUa,  the  late  president  of  the  Cisal- 
pine republic,  and  the  best  lawyer  in 
Piedmont,  was  told  by  a  friend  when  he 
was  forty  j'ears  of  age  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  botany.  He  was  piqued,  be- 
came a  second  Jussieu,  cultivated  flow- 
.,'rs,  and  compiled  and  published  "  The 
Flora  of  Piedmont,"  in  Latin,  the  work 
of  ten  years.  "  I'll  master  De  Marsay 
some  of  these  days!"  thought  the  crushed 
poet;  "after  all.  Canning  and  Chateau- 
briand are  both  politicians." 


Canalis  would  gladly  have  brought 
forth  some  great  political  work,  but  he 
was  afraid  of  the  French  press,  whose 
criticisms  are  savage  upon  any  writer 
who  takes  four  alexandrines  to  express 
one  idea.  Of  all  the  poets  of  our  day  only 
three,  Hugo,  Theophilc  Gautier,  and  De 
Vigny^  have  been,  able  to  win  the  double 
glory  of  poet  and  prose-writer,  like  Racme 
and  Voltaire,  Moliere  and  Rabelais  —  a 
rare  distinction  in  the  literature  of  France, 
which  ought  to  g'ive  a  man  a  rig-ht  to  the 
crowning  title  of  poet. 

The  bard  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Ger- 
main, therefore,  was  doing-  a  wise  thing- 
in  trjnng-  to  shelter  his  little  chariot  be- 
neath the  protecting  roof  of  the  present 
government.  When  he  became  jjresident 
of  the  court  of  Claims  at  the  foreign 
office,  he  stood  in  need  of  a  seci^etai-y — a 
friend  wjao  could  take  his  place  in  vai-ious 
ways ;  cook  up  his  interests  with  pub- 
lishers, see  to  his  glory  in  the  newspapers, 
help  him  if  need  be  in  politics — in  short, 
be  his  cat's-paw  and  satellite.  In  Paris 
many  men  of  celebrity  in  art,  science, 
and  litei'ature  have  one  or  more  train- 
bearers,  captains  of  the  guard,  chamber- 
lains as  it  were,  who  live  in  the  sunshine 
of  their  presence — aides-de-camp  intrusted 
with  delicate  missions,  permitting-  them- 
selves to  be  compromised  if  necessary ; 
toiling  at  the  pedestal  of  the  idol ;  not  ex- 
actl^r  his  servants,  nor  yet  his  equals ; 
bold  in  his  defense,  first  in  the  breach, ' 
covering-  all  retreats,  occupied  with  his 
affairs,  and  devoted  to  him  just  so  long- 
as  their  illusions  last,  or  until  they  have 
got  all  they  wanted.  Some  of  these  satel- 
lites perceive  a  little  ing-ratitude  in  their 
great  man  ;  others  feel  that  they  are 
simply  made  tools  of  ;  many  weary  of  the 
life;  very  few  remain  contented  witli  that 
sweet  equality  of  feeling-  and  sentiment 
which  is  the  only  reward  tliat  should  be 
looked  for  in  an  intimacj'  with  a  superior 
man — a  reward  that  contented  Ali  when 
Mohammeil  raised  him  to  himself. 

Many,  misled  hy  vanity,  think  them- 
selves as  capable  as  their  patron.  Pure 
devotion,  such  as  Modeste  conceived  it, 
without  money  and  without  price,  and 
more   especially   without    hone,    is    rai-e. 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


363 


Nevertheless  there  are  Mennevals  to  be 
found,  more  perhaps  in  Paris  than  else- 
where, men  wlio  value  a  life  in  the  back- 
ground with  its  peaceful  toil :  Benedic- 
tines who  have  wandered  into  our  social 
world,  which  offers  them  no  monastery. 
These  brave,  meek  hearts  bear  in  their 
actions  and  in  their  hidden  lives  the 
poetry  that  writers  express.  They  are 
poets  themselves  in  soul,  in  tenderness, 
in  their  lonely  and  tender  meditations — 
as  truly  poets  as  others  of  the  name  on 
paper,  who  fatten  in  the  fields  of  litera- 
ture at  so  much  a  verse  ;  like  Lord  Byron, 
like  all  who  live,  alas  !  by  ink,  the  Hippo- 
crene  water  of  to-day,  for  want  of  a 
better. 

Attracted  b^-  the  fame  of  Canalis,  also 
by  the  prospect  of  political  interest,  and 
advised  thereto  by  Madame  d'Espard, 
who  acted  in  the  matter  for  the  Duchesse 
de  Chaulieu,  a  young  lawyer  of  the  court 
of  Claims  constituted  himself  gratuitous 
secretary  to  the  poet,  who  welcomed  and 
petted  him  very  much  as  a  broker  ca- 
resses his  first  dabbler  in  the  funds.  The 
beginning  of  this  companionship  bore  a 
very  fair  resemblance  to  friendship.  The 
young  man  had  already  held  the  same 
relation  to  a  nlinister,  who  went  out  of 
office  in  1827,  taking  care  before  he  did 
so  to  appoint  his  young  secretary  to  a 
place  in  the  foreign  office.  Ernest  de  la 
Briere,  then  about  twentj'-seven  years  of 
age,  was  decorated  with  the  Legion  of 
Honor  but  was  without  other  means  than 
his  salary ;  he  was  accustomed  to  the 
management  of  business  and  had  learned 
a  good  deal  of  life  during  his  four  years 
in  a  minister's  cabinet.  Kindly,  amiable, 
and  almost  over-modest,  with  a  heart 
full  of  pure  and  sound  feelings,  he  was 
averse  to  putting  himself  in  the  fore- 
ground. He  loved  his  country,  and 
wished  to  serve  her,  but  notoriety'  abashed 
him.  To  him  the  place  of  secretary  to  a 
Napoleon  was  far  more  desirable  than 
that  of  prime  minister.  As  soon  as  he 
'became  the  friend  and  seci-etary  of  Cana- 
lis he  did  a  great  amount  of  labor  for 
him,  but  hy  the  end  of  eighteen  months 
he  recognized  the  barrenness  of  a  nature 
that  was  poetic  through  literary-  expres- 


sion onl3'.  The  truth  of  the  old  proverb, 
"The  gown  does  not  make  the  monk," 
is  eminently  .shown  in  literature.  It  is 
extremel3'  rare  to  find  among  literary 
men  a  nature  and  a  talent  that  are  in 
perfect  accord.  The  faculties  are  not  the 
man  himself.  This  disconnection,  whose 
phenomena  are  amazing,  proceeds  from 
an  unexplored,  possibly  an  unexplorable 
my.stery.  The  bi'ain  and  its  products  of 
all  kinds  (for  in  art  the  hand  of  man  is  a 
continuation  of  his  brain)  are  a  world 
apart,  which  flourishes  beneath  the  cra- 
nium in  absolute  independence  of  senti- 
ments, feelings,  and  all  virtue  of  citizens, 
fathers,  and  pi-ivate  life.  This,  however 
true,  is  not  absolutely  so  ;  nothing  is  ab- 
solutely true  of  man.  It  is  certain  that 
a  debauched  man  will  dissipate  his  talent, 
that  a  drunkard  will  waste  it  in  libations: 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  no  man  can 
give  himself  talent  b^-  wholesome  living : 
nevertheless  it  is  all  but  j^roved  that  Vir- 
gil, the  painter  of  Love,  never  loved  a 
Dido,  and  that  Rousseau,  the  model  citi- 
zen, had  enough  pride  to  have  furnished 
an  entire  aristocracy.  On  the  other  hand 
Raphael  and  Michael^Angelo  do  present 
the  glorious  spectacle  of  genius  in  accord 
with  character. 

Talent  in  men  is  therefore,  in  all  moral 
points,  verj'  much  what  beauty  is  in  wo- 
men— simply  a  promise.  Let  us,  there- 
fore, doubly  admire  the  man  in  whom 
both  heart  and  character  equal  the  per- 
fection of  his  genius. 

When  Ernest  discovered  beneath  the 
poet  an  ambitious  egoist,  the  worst  spe- 
cies of  egoist  (for  there  are  some  amiable 
forms  of  the  vice),  he  felt  a  delicacy  in 
leaving  him.  Honest  natures  cannot 
easily  break  the  ties  that  bind  them, 
especially  if  they  have  been  assumeil  vol- 
untarily. The  secretary  was  therefore 
still  living  in  domestic  relations  with  the 
poet  when  Modeste's  letter  arrived — in 
such  relations,  however,  as  involved  a 
perpetual  sacrifice  of  his  feelings.  La 
Briere  admitted  the  frankness  with  which 
Canalis  had  laid  himself  bare  before  him. 
Moreover,  the  defects  of  the  man,  who 
will  always  be  considered  a  great  poet 
during  his  lifetime  and  flattered  like  Mar- 


364 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


montel,  were  only  the  reverse  side  of  his 
brilliant  qualities.  Without  his  vanity 
and  his  pretensions  it  is  possible  that  he 
mig-ht  never  have  acquired  the  sonorous 
diction  which  is  so  useful  and  even  neces- 
sary an  instrument  in  political  life.  His 
cold-bloodedness  bordered  upon  rectitude 
and  loyalty ;  his  ostentation  had  a  lining 
of  generosity.  Society  profited  by  the 
results;  the  motives  concerned  God. 

But  when  Modeste's  letter  arrived, 
Ernest  deceived  himself  no  longer  as  to 
Canalis.  The  pair  had  just  finished 
breakfast  and  were  talking  together  in 
the  poet's  study,  which  was  on  the 
ground-floor  of  a  house  standing  back 
in  a  courtyard,  and  overlooked  a  garden. 

"There!"  exclaimed  Canalis,  "I  was 
telling  Madame  de  Chaulieu  the  other 
daj^  that  I  ought  to  bring  out  another 
poem ;  I  knew  admiration  was  running 
short,  for  I  have  had  no  anonj'mous  let- 
ters for  a  long  time." 

"  Is  it  from  an  unknown  woman  ?  " 

"  Unknown  ?  yes  ! — a  D'Este,  in  Havre ; 
evidently  a  feigned  name." 

Canalis  passed  the  letter  to  La  Briere. 
The  little  poem,  -ft-ith  all  its  hidden  en- 
thusiasms, which  was  poor  Modeste's 
heart,  was  disdainfully  handed  over,  with 
the  gesture  of  a  spoiled  dand3\ 

"It  is  a  fine  thing,"  said  the  lawyer, 
"  to  have  the  power  to  attract  such  feel- 
ings ;  to  force  a  poor  woman  to  step  out 
of  the  habits  which  nature,  education,  and 
the  world  dictate  to  her,  to  break  through 
conventions.  What  pri^aleges  genius  wins! 
A  letter  such  as  this,  written  by  a  young 
girl — a  genuine  young  girl — without  hid- 
den meanings,  with  real  enthusiasm — " 

"Well?  "said  Canalis. 

"  Whj',  a  man  might  suffer  as  much  as 
Tasso  and  yet  feel  recomi^ensed,"  cried  La 
Briere. 

"  That  is  all  very  well,  my  dear  fellow, 
for  a  first  letter  of  that  kind,  and  even  a 
second  ;  but  how  about  the  thirtieth  ? 
And  suppose  you  find  out  that  these 
young  enthusiasts  are  little  jades  ?  Im- 
agine a  poet  rushing  along  the  brilliant 
path  in  search  of  her,  and  finding  at  the 
end  of  it  an  old  Englishwoman  sitting  on 
a  mile-stone  and  offering  you  her  hand  I 


Or  suppose  this  post-office  angel  should 
really  be  a  rather  ugly  girl  in  quest  of 
a  husband  ?  Ah,  my  boj' !  the  efferves- 
cence then  goes  down." 

"I  begin  to  perceive,"  said  La  Briere, 
smiling,  "that  there  is  something  poison- 
ous in  glory,  as  there  is  in  certain  dazzling 
flowers." 

"And  then,"  resurrfed  Canalis,  "all 
these  women,  even  when  they  are  simple- 
minded,  have  ideals,  and  one  rarely  an- 
swers to  it.  They  never  say  to  themselves 
that  a  poet  is  a  vain  man,  as  I  am  accused 
of  being  ;  the^^  cannot  conceive  what  it  is 
for  an  author  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  fev- 
erish excitement,  which  makes  him  dis- 
agreeable and  capricious  ;  thej'  want  him 
to  be  always  grand,  always  noble  ;  it 
never  occurs  to  them  that  genius  is  a 
disease,  or  that  Nathan  lives  with  Flo- 
rine ;  that  D'Arthez  is  too  fat,  and  Jo- 
seph Bridau  is  too  thin ;  that  Beranger 
limps,  and  that  their  own  particular 
deity  may  have  the  snuffles !  A  Lucien 
de  Rubempre,  poet  and  cupid,  is  a  phoenix. 
And  why  should  I  go  in  search  of  compli- 
ments only  to  pull  the  string  of  a  shower- 
bath  of  cold  looks  from  some  disillusioned 
female  ?  " 

"Then  the  true  poet,'*  said  La  Briere, 
"ought  to  remain  hidden,  like  God,  in 
the  center  of  his  worlds,  and  be  only  seen 
in  his  own  creations." 

"Then  glory  would  cost  too  dear,"  an- 
swered Canalis.  "  There  is  some  good  in 
life.  As  for  that  letter,"  he  added,  tak- 
ing a  cup  of  tea,  "  I  assure  j'ou  that  when 
a  noble  and  beautiful  woman  loves  a  poet 
she  does  not  hide  in  the  corner  boxes, 
like  a  duchess  in  love  with  an  actor ;  she 
feels  herself  sufficiently  protected  by  her 
beauty,  her  fortune  and  her  name  to  dare 
to  say  openly,  like  all  epic  poems  :  '  I  am 
the  nymph  Calypso,  enamored  of  Tele- 
machus.'  Mystery  is  the  resource  of  lit- 
tle minds.  For  my  part  I  no  longer  an- 
swer incognitos." 

"How  I  should  love  a  woman  who 
came  to  seek  me  !  "  cried  La  Briere,  wath 
emotion.  "To  all  you  say  I  reply,  my  ^ 
dear  Canalis,  that  it  cannot  be  an  ordi- 
nary girl  who  aspires  to  a  distinguishe(J 
man  ;  such  a  girl  has  too  little  trust,  too 
\ 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


365 


much  vanitj' ;  she  is  too  faint-hearted. 
Onh-  a  star,  a — " 

•• — princess!"  cried  Canalis,  bursting 
into  a  shout  of  laughter ;  "  only  a  prin- 
cess can  descend  to  him.  My  dear  fellow, 
that  doesn't  happen  once  in  a  hundred 
years.  Such  a  love  is  like  that  flower 
that  blossoms  every  century.  Princesses, 
if  they  are  young-,  rich,  and  beautiful, 
have  something  else  to  think  of;  they 
are  surrounded,  like  all  rare  plants,  by  a 
hedge  of  fools,  well-bred  idiots  as  hollow 
as  elder-bushes !  My  dream,  alas !  the 
crystal  of  my  dream,  garlanded  from 
hence  to  the  Correze  with  roses — ah  !  I 
cannot  speak  of  it — it  is  in  fragments 
at  my  feet,  and  has  long  been  so.  No, 
no,  all  anonymous  letters  are  begging 
letters ;  and  what  sort  chances  !  Write 
yourself  to  that  young  woman,  if  you 
suppose  her  young  and  pretty,  and  j'ou'll 
find  out.  I  can't  reasonably  be  expected 
to  love  every  woman ;  Apollo,  at  any 
rate  he  of  Belvedere,  is  a  delicate  con- 
sumptive who  must  take  care  of  his 
health." 

'•  But  when  a  woman  writes  to  you  in 
this  way  her  excuse  must  be  in  her  con- 
sciousness that  she  is  able  to  eclipse  in 
tenderness  and  beautj'  everj'  other  wo- 
man," said  Ernest,  "and  I  should  think 
you  might  feel  some  curiosity — " 

'•'Ah,"  said  Canalis,  "permit  me,  my 
juvenile  friend,  to  abide  by  the  beautiful 
duchess,  who  makes  all  my  happiness." 

"  You  are  right,  too  right  I  "  replied 
Ernest.  However,  the  young  secretary 
read  and  re-read  Modeste's  letter,  striving 
to  guess  the  mind  of  its  hidden  writer. 

"There  is  not  the  least  fine-writing 
here,"  he  said,  "she  does  not  refer  to 
genius;  she  speaks  to  your  heart.  This 
fragrance  of  modesty  —  this  proposed 
agreement,  would  tempt  me — " 

"Sign  it!"  cried  Canalis,  laughing; 
"answer  the  letter  and  go  to  the  end  of 
the  adventure  yourself.  You  shall  tell 
me  the  result  three  months  hence — if  the 
affair  lasts  so  long." 

Four  days  later  Modeste  received  the 
following  letter,  written  on  extremely 
fine  paper,  protected  by  two  envelopes, 
and  sealed  with  the  arms  of  Canalis. 


"  Mademoiselle— The  admiration  for 
fine  works  (allowing  that  my  books  are 
such)  implies  something  so  holy  and  sin- 
cere as  to  protect  you  from  all  light  jest- 
ing, and  to  justify  before  the  sternest 
judge  the  step  j-ou  have  taken  in  writing 
to  me. 

"But  first  I  must  thank  you  for  the 
pleasure  which  such  proofs  of  sj^mpathy 
always  afford,  even  though  we  may  not 
merit  them — for  the  maker  of  verses  and 
the  true  poet  are  equally  certain  of  the 
intrinsic  worth  of  their  writings  —  so 
readily  does  self-esteem  lend  itself  to 
praise.  The  best  proof  of  friendship  that 
I  can  give  to  an  unknown  lady  in  ex- 
change for  a  faith  which  allays  the  sting 
of  criticism,  is  to  share  with  her  the  har- 
vest of  my  own  experience,  even  at  the 
risk  of  dispelling  her  most  vivid  illusions. 

"Mademoiselle, the  most  beautiful  crown 
for  a  young  girl  is  the  flower  of  a  pure 
and  saintly  and  irreproachable  life.  Are 
you  alone  in  the  world  ?  If  you  are,  there 
is  no  need  to  say  more.  But  if  you  have 
a  family,  a  father  or  a  mother,  thinlc  of 
all  the  grief  that  might  come  to  them 
from  such  a  letter  as  j'ours  addressed  to 
a  poet  whom  j'ou  do  not  know  personally. 
All  MTiters  are  not  angels ;  they  have 
many  defects.  Some  are  frivolous,  heed- 
less, foppish,  ambitious,  dissipated  ;  and, 
no  matter  how  imposing  innocence  may 
be,  nor  how  chivalrous  the  French  poet, 
you  will  meet. with  manj^  a  degenerate 
troubadour  in  Paris  readj-  to  cultivate 
your  affection  only  to  betray  it.  By  such 
a  man  your  letter  would  be  interpreted 
otherwise  than  it  is  by  me.  He  would 
see  a  thought  that  is  not  in  it,  which  you, 
in  your  innocence,  have  not  suspected. 
There  are  as  many  natures  as  there  are 
writers.  I  am  deeply  flattered  that  3X)u 
have  judged  me  capable  of  understand- 
ing you  ;  but  had  you  chanced  to  fall 
upon  a  hypocrite,  a  scoffer,  one  whose 
books  maj'  be  melancholy  while  his  life 
is  a  perpetual  carnival,  you  would  have 
foimd  as  the  result  of  your  generous  im- 
prudence an  evil-minded  man.  the  fre- 
quenter of  green-rooms,  perhaps  the  hero 
of  some  gay  resort.  In  the  bower  of  cle- 
matis  where    you   dream    of    poets  you 


366 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


cannot  smell  the  odor  of  the  cigar  which 
drives  all  poetry  from  the  manuscript, 
any  more  than  when,  in  making-  your 
toilet  for  the  ball,  you  ornament  yourself 
with  the  sparkling-  products  of  the  jew- 
eler's art,  you  can  realize  the  streng-th  of 
the  workmen  in  the  humble  worksliops 
where  tliose  radiant  flowers  of  toil  blos- 
som forth  into  beautj-. 

"But  let  us  look  still  further.  How 
could  the  dreamy,  solitary  life  you  lead, 
doubtless  by  the  seashore,  interest  a  poet, 
whose  mission  it  is  to  imagine  all,  since 
he  must  paint  all  ?  What  reality  can 
equal  imagination  ?  The  young  girls  of 
the  poets  are  so  ideal  tliat  no  living 
daughter  of  Eve  can  compete  with  them. 
And  now  tell  me  what  will  you  gain— you, 
a  3'oung  girl,  brought  up  to  be  the  vir- 
tuous mother  of  a  familj^— if  you  learn  to 
comprehend  the  terrible  agitations  of  a 
poet's  life  in  this  dreadful  capital,  which 
may  be  defined  by  one  sentence — the  hell 
which  men  love. 

"  If  the  desire,  to  brighten  the  monoto- 
nous existence  of  a  curious  young  girl  has 
led  you  to  take  your  pen  in  hand  and 
wi'itc  to  me,  has  not  the  step  itself  the 
appearance  of  degradation  ?  What  mean- 
ing am  I  to  give  to  your  letter  ?  Are  you 
one  of  a  rejected  caste,  and  do  ymi  seek 
a  friend  far  away  from  you?  Or,  are 
you  afflicted  with  personal  ugliness,  yet 
possessed  of  a  noble  soul  which  has  no 
confidant?  You  have  said  too  much,  or 
too  little.  Either  let  us  drop  this  corre- 
spondence, or,  i[  you  continue  it,  tell  me 
more  than  in  the  letter  you  have  now 
written  me. 

"  But,  mademoiselle,  if  you  are  young, 
if  you  are  beautiful,  if  you  have  a  home, 
a  family,  if  in  your  heart  you  have  the 
precious  ointment,  the  spikenard,  to  pour 
out,  as  did  Magdalene  on  the  feet  of 
Jesus,  let  yourself  be  won  by  a  man 
worthy  of  you ;  become  what  every  pure 
young  girl  should  be  —  a  good  Avoman, 
the  virtuous  mother  of  a  family.  A  poet 
is  the  saddest  conquest  that  a  girl  can 
make ;  he  h:is  too  much  vanity,  too  many 
angles  that  will  sharply  wound  a  woman's 
proper  pride,  and  kill  a  tenderness  which 
has  no  experience  of  life.     The  wife  of  a 


poet  should  love  him  long  before  she 
marries  him ;  she  should  train  herself 
to  the  charity  of  angels,  to  their  forbear- 
ance, to  all  the  virtues  of  motherhood. 
Such  qualities,  mademoiselle,  are  but 
germs  in  a  young  girl. 

"  Listen  to  the  whole  truth — do  I  not 
owe  it  to  j-ou  in  return  for  your  intoxicat- 
ing flatterj'  ?  If  it  is  a  glorious  thing  to 
marry  a  man  who  is  celebrated,  remem- 
ber also  that  you  must  soon  discover  a 
superior  man  to  be,  in  all  essentials,  like 
other  men.  He  is  therefore  all  the  less 
likely  to  realize  hopes,  since  prodigies 
are  expected  of  him.  He  becomes  like 
a  woman  whose  beauty  is  overpraised, 
and  of  whom  we  say  :  '  I  thought  her 
far  more  lovely.'  She  has  not  warranted 
the  portrait  painted  by  the  f;iiry  to  whom 
I  owe  your  letter — the  fairy  whose  name 
is  Imagination. 

"  The  qualities  of  the  mind  live  and 
thrive  only  in  an  invisible  sphere;  the  wife 
of  a  poet  sees  onlj'  their  inconveniences  ; 
she  sees  the  jewels  manufactured,  but  she 
never  wears  them.  If  the  glory  of  an 
exceptional  position  fascinates  you,  hear 
me  now  when  I  tell  you  that  its  pleasures 
are  soon  at  an  end.  You  will  suffer 
when  you  find  so  many  asperities  in  a 
nature  which,  from  a  distance,  you 
thought  equable,  such  coldness  at  a 
shining  summit.  Moreover,  as  women 
never  set  their  feet  within  the  world  of 
real  difficulties,  they  cease  to  appreciate 
what  they  once  admired  as  soon  as  they 
think  they  see  the  inner  mechanism  of  it. 

"I  close  with  a  last  thought,  in  which 
there  is  no  disguised  entreaty ;  it  is  the 
covmsel  of  a  friend.  The  exchange  of 
souls  can  take  place  only  between  per- 
sons who  are  resolved  to  hide  nothing 
from  each  other.  Would  you  show  your- 
self for  such  as  you  are  to  an  unknown 
man  ?  I  dare  not  follow  out  the  conse- 
quences of  that  idea. 

"  Deign  to  accept,  mademoiselle,  the 
homage  which  we  owe  to  all  women,  even 
those  who  are  disguised  and  masked." 

So  this  was  the  letter  she  had  worn  be- 
tween her  flesh  and  her  corset  above  her 
palpitating  heart  throughout  one  whole 


MODE  ST E    MIGNON. 


367 


day  !  For  this  she  had  postponed  the 
reading'  until  the  midnig-ht  hour  when 
the  lioLisehold  slept,  after  having-  waited 
for  the  solemn  silence  with  the  eager 
anxiety  of  an  ijnngination  on  fire  !  For 
this  she  had  blessed  the  poet,  and  had 
read  in  imagination  a  thousand  -letters 
ere  she  opened  one — fancying-  all  things, 
except  this  di-op  of  cold  water  falling- 
upon  the  vaporous  forms  of  her  illusion, 
and  dissolving  them  as  prussic  acid  dis- 
solves life.  There  was  nothing-  to  do  but 
to  hide  herself  in  her  bed,  blow  out  her 
candle,  bury  her  face  in  the  sheets  and 
weep  ! 

All  this  happened  during  the-  first 
days  of  July.  Modeste  presentl3'  got 
up,  walked  across  the  room  and  opened 
the  window.  She  wanted  air.  The  fra- 
g-rance  of  the  flowers  came  up  to  her  with 
that  freshness  of  odor  peculiar  to  flowers 
in  the  night.  The  sea,  lighted  by  the 
moon,  sparkled  like  a  mirror.  A  night- 
ing-ale  w-as  singing-  in  a  tree  in  Vilquin's 
park.  "  Ah,  there  is  the  poet  !  "  thought 
Modeste,  her  anger  at  once  subsiding. 
Bitter  reflections  chased  each  other 
thi'ough  her  mind.  She  was  cut  to  the 
quick;  she  wanted  to  re-read  the  letter, 
and  lit  a  candle  ;  she  studied  the  care- 
fully composed  sentences  ;  and  heard  in 
them  at  last  the  voice  of  the  outer  world. 

"He  is  right,  and  I  am  wrong,"  she 
said  to  herself.  "  Bi^  who  could  ever 
believe  that  \uider  the  starry  mantle  of 
a  poet  I  should  find  nothing  but  one  of 
Moliere's  old  men  ?  " 

When  a  woman  or  young  girl  makes  an 
error  of  good  ta.ste,  she  conceives  a  deadly 
hatred  to  the  witness,  the  author,  or  the 
object  of  her  fault.  And  so  the  true,  the 
natural,  the  untamed  Modeste  conceived 
within  her  soul  an  unquenchable  desire  to 
fling  herself  ag-ainst  that  rig^hteous  spirit, 
to  drive  it  into  some  fatal  inconsistency, 
and  so  return  blow  for  blow.  This  pure 
child,  whose  head  alone  had  been  mis- 
g-uided — piirtly  by  her  reading,  partly  by 
her  sister's  sorrows,  and  more  perhaps 
by  the  dangerous  meditations  of  her  soli- 
tary life^was  suddenly  surprised  by  the 
flickering  of  a  ray  of  sunshine  aci'oss  her 
face.     She  had  been   standing-  for  three 


hours  on  the  shores  of  the  vast  sea  of 
Doubt.  Nights  like  these  are  never  for- 
g-otten.  Modeste  walked  straight  to  her 
little  Chinese  table,  a  gift  from  her  father, 
and  wrote  a  letter  dictated  by  the  spirit 
of  vengeance  w-hich  palpitates  in  the 
hearts  of  young  g-irls. 


VIII. 


"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis  : 

"  Monsieur — You  are  certainly  a  g-reat 
poet,  and  you  are  something  more  —  an 
honest  man.  After  showing-  such  loyal 
frankness  to  a  young  g-irl  who  was  upon 
the  verge  of  an  abyss,  have  you  enough 
left  to  answer  without  hj'pocrisy  or  eva- 
sion the  following-  question  ? 

'•'Would  you  have  written  the  letter  I 
now  hold  in  answer  to  mine — would  your 
ideas,  your  lang-uag-e  have  been  the  same 
— had  some  one  whispered  in  your  ear 
(what  may  be  true).  Mademoiselle  O. 
d'Este  M.  has  six  millions  and  does  not 
intend  to  have  a  fool  for  a  master  Y 

"  Admit  the  supposition  for  a  moment. 
Be  with  me  what  you  are  with  j^oui*self ; 
fear  nothing.  I  am  wiser  than  my  twenty 
years  :  nothing  that  is  frank  can  hurt  you 
in  my  mind.  When  I  have  read  your  con- 
fidence, if  you  deig-n  to  make  it,  ,you  shall 
receive  from  me  an  answer  to  your  first 
letter. 

•■  Having  admired  your  talent,  often  so 
sublime,  permit  me  to  do  homage  to  your 
delicacy  and  your  integrity,  which  force 
me  to  remain  always, 

"  Your  humble  servant, 

'•  O.  d'Este  M." 

When  Ernest  de  la  Briere  had  read 
this  letter  he  went  to  walk  along-  the 
boulevards,  tossed  in  mind  like  a  tin^' 
vessel  by  a  tempest  when  the  wind  is 
blowing  from  all  points  of  the  compass. 
An  ordinary  young-  man,  a  true  Parisian, 
would  have  settled  the  matter  in  a  sing-le 
phrase,  "■  The  g-irl  is  a  little  hussy."  But 
for  a  youth  whose  soul  was  noble  and 
true,  this  attempt  to  put  him  upon  his 


368 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


oath,  this  appeal  to  truth,  had  the  power 

to  awaken  the  three  judges  hidden  in  the 
conscience  of  every  man.  Honor,  Truth, 
and  Justice,  getting  on  their  feet,  cried 
out  in  their  several  ways  energetically. 

"Ah,  my  dear  Ernest,"  said  Truth, 
"j'ou  never  would  have  read  that  lesson 
to  a  rich  heiress.  No,  my  bo.y;  you  would 
have  gone  in  hot  haste  to  Havre  to  find 
out  if  the  girl  were  handsome,  and  you 
would  have  been  ver^'  unhappy  indeed  at 
her  preference  for  genius;  and  if  you 
could  have  tripped  up  your  friend  and 
taken  his  place  in  lier  affections.  Made- 
moiselle d'Este  would  have  been  a  di- 
vinity." 

"  What  ?  "  cried  Justice,  "  are  you  not 
always  bemoaning  yourselves,  j'ou  penni- 
less men  of  wit  and  capacity,  that  rich 
girls  marry  beings  whom  you  wouldn't 
take  as  your  servants.  You  rail  against 
the  materialism  of  the  centurj"^  which 
hastens  to  unite  wealth  to  wealth,  and 
never  marries  some  fine  young  man  with 
brains  and  no  money  to  a  rich  girl.  Hei-e 
is  one  wlio  revolts  against  that  very  spirit 
of  the  age,  and  behold  !  the  poet  replies 
with  a  blow  at  her  heart !  " 

"  Rich  or  poor,  young  or  old,  uglj^  or 
handsome,  the  girl  is  right ;  she  has  a 
mind  of  her  own ;  she  has  tripped  the 
poet  into  the  slough  of  self-interest," 
cried  Honor.  "  She  deserves  an  answer, 
a  sincere  and  noble  and  frank  answer, 
and,  above  all,  the  honest  expression  of 
your  thought.  Examine  yourself  !  sound 
j'our  heart  and  purge  it  of  its  cowardice. 
What  would  Moliere's  Alceste  say  ?  " 

And  La  Briere,  who  had  started  from 
the  Boulevard  Poissoniere,  walked  so 
slowly,  absorbed  in  these  reflections,  that 
he  was  more  than  an  hour  in  reaching 
the  Boulevard  des  Capuciiies.  Then  he 
followed  the  quays,  whicli  led  him  to  the 
Cour  des  Comptes,  situated  at  that  time 
close  to  the  Sainte-Chapelle.  Instead  of 
beginning  on  his  accounts,  he  remained  at 
the  mercj-  of  his  perplexities. 

"  One  thing  is  evident,"  he  said  to  him- 
self ;  "  she  hasn't  six  millions  ;  but  tliat's 
not  the  point — " 

Six  days  later,  Modeste  received  the 
following  letter: 


"Mademoiselle— You  are  not  a  D'Este. 
The  name  is  a  feigned  one  to  conceal  your 
own.  Do  I  owe  the  revelations  which  you 
solicit  to  a  person  who  is  untruthful  about 
herself  ?  Question  for  question  :  Are  you 
of  an  illustrious  family  ?  or  a  noble  fami- 
ly ?  ora  middle-class  family  ?  Undoubt- 
edly morality  cannot  change,  it  is  the 
same  everywhere ;  but  its  obligations 
vary  in  different  states  of  life.  Just  as 
the  sun  lights  up  a  scene  diversely  and 
produces  differences  which  we  admire,  so 
does  morality  conform  social  dutj'  to  rank, 
to  position.  The  peccadillo  of  a  soldier 
is  a  crime  in  a  general,  and  vice  versa. 
Observances  are  not  the  same  for  the 
gleaner  in  the  field,  for  the  gii'l  who  sews 
at  fifteen  sous  a  day,  for  the  daughter  of 
a  petty  shopkeeper,  for  the  young  bour- 
geoise,  for  the  child  of  a  rich  merchant, 
for  the  heiress  of  a  noble  family,  for  a 
daughter  of  the  house  of  Este.  A  king 
must  not  stoop  to  pick  up  a  piece  of  gold, 
but  a  laborer  ought  to  retrace  his  steps  to 
find  ten  sous ;  though  both  are  equally 
bound  to  obey  the  laws  of  economy'.  A 
daughter  of  Este,  who  is  worth  six  mil- 
lions, has  the  right  to  wear  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat  and  plume,  to  flourish  her 
whip,  use  the  spur,  and  ride  like  an 
amazon  decked  in  gold  lace,  followed  hj 
lackeys,  into  the  presence  of  a  poet  and 
say  :  '  I  love  poetry  ;  and  I  would  fain 
expiate  Leonora'^cruelty  to  Tasso  ! '  but 
a  daughter  of  the  people  would  cover  her- 
self with  ridicule  by  imitating  her.  To 
what  class  do  you  belong  ?  Answer  sin- 
cerely, and  I  will  answer  the  question  you 
have  put  to  me. 

"As  I  have  not  the  honor  of  knowing 
you  personally,  and  yet  am.  bound  to  you, 
in  a  measure,  by  the  ties  of  poetic  com- 
munion, I  am  unwilling  to  offer  you  any 
commonplace  compliments.  Perhaps  you 
have  ah'eady  won  a  malicious  victory  by 
thus  embarrassing  a  maker  of  books." 

The  3'oung  man  was  certainly  not  want- 
ing in  the  sort  of  shrewdness  which  is 
permissible  to  a  man  of  honor.  By  re- 
turn mail  he  received  an  answer : 

"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis — You  grow 
more  and  more  sensible,  my  dear  poet. 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON, 


369 


My  father  is  a  count.  The  chief  glory  of 
our  house  was  a  cardinal,  in  the  days  when 
cardinals  walked  the  earth  by  the  side  of 
kings.  I  am  the  last  of  our  family,  but  I 
have  the  necessary  quarterings  to  make 
my  entry  into  any  court  or  chapter-house 
in  Europe.  We  are  quite  the  equals  of 
the  Canalis.  You  will  be  kind  enough  to 
excuse  me  from  sending  j'ou  our  arms. 

"  Endeavor  to  reply  as  truthfully  as  I 
have  done.  I  await  your  response  to  know 
if  I  can  then  sign  myself  as  I  do  now, 
"  Your  servant,      0.  d'Este  M." 

"  The  little  mischief  !  how  she  abuses 
her  privileges,"  cried  La  Briere  ;  "but  is 
she  frank  ?" 

No  young  man  can  be  four  years  pri- 
vate secretary  to  a  cabinet  minister,  and 
live  in  Paris  and  observe  the  carrying  on 
of  many  intrigues, 'with  perfect  impunity  ; 
the  purest  soul  is  more  or  less  intoxicated 
by  the  heady  atmosphere  of  the  imperial 
cit3^  Happy  in  the  thought  that  he  was 
not  Canalis,  our  young  secretary  engaged 
a  place  in  the  mail-coach  for  Havre,  after 
writing  a  letter  in  which  he  announced 
that  the  promised  answer  would  be  sent 
on  a  certain  day — excusing  the  delay  on 
the  ground  of  the  importance  of  the  con- 
fession and  the  pressure  of  his  duties  at 
the  ministry. 

He  took  care  to  get  from  the  director- 
general  of  the  post-office  a  note  to  the 
postmaster  at  Havre,  requesting  secrecy 
and  attention  to  his  wishes.  Ernest  was 
thus  enabled  to  see  Frangoise  Crochet 
when  she  came  for  the  letters,  and  to 
follow  her  without  exciting  obsers^ation. 
Guided  by  her,  he  reached  Ingou\ille  and 
saw  Modeste  Mignon  at  the  window  of  the 
Chalet. 

"Well,  Frangoise?"  he  heard  the 
young  girl  say :  to  which  the  maid  re- 
sponded : 

'•Yes,  mademoiselle,  I  have  one." 

Struck  by  the  girl's  great  beautj', 
Ernest  retx'aced  his  steps  and  asked  a 
man  on  the  street  the  name  of  the  owner 
of  the  magnificent  estate. 

"  That  ?  "  said  the  man,  nodding  to  the 
villa. 

"Yes,  my  friend." 


"  Oh,  that  belongs  to  Monsieur  Vilquin, 
the  richest  shipping  merchant  in  Havre, 
a  man  so  x'ich  he  doesn't  know  what  he  is 
worth.". 

"  There  is  no  Cardinal  Vilquin  that  I 
know  of  in  historj',"  thought  Ernest,  as 
he  walked  back  to  Havre  to  return  to 
Paris.  Naturally  he  questioned  the  post- 
master about  the  Vilquin  family,  and 
learned  that  it  possessed  an  enormous 
fortune.  Monsieur  Vilquin  had  a  son  and 
two  daug-hters,  one  of  whom  was  mar- 
ried to  Monsieur  Althor,  junior.  Pru- 
dence kept  La  Briere  from  seeming 
anxious  about  the  Vilquins ;  the  post- 
master was  already  looking  at  him  sus- 
piciously. 

"Is  there  any  one  staying  with  them 
at  the  present  moment,"  he  asked,  "be- 
sides the  family  ?  " 

"The  D'Herouville  family  is  there  just 
now.  They  do  talk  of  a  marriage  be- 
tween the  young  duke  and  the  youngest 
Mademoiselle  Vilquin." 

"  There  was  a  celebrated  Cardinal 
d'Herouville  under  the  Valois,"  thought 
Ernest,  '^nd  a  terrible  marshal  whom 
they  made  a  duke  in  tlie  time  of  Henry 
IV."     . 

Ernest  returned  to  Paris  having  seen 
enough  of  Modeste  to  dream  of  her,  and 
to  think  that,  whether  she  w^ere  rich  or 
whether  she  were  poor,  if  she  had  a  noble 
soul  he  would  like  to  make  her  Madame 
de  la  Briere ;  and  he  resolved  to  con- 
tinue the  correspondence. 

Ah  !  you  poor  women  of  France,  try  to 
remain  hidden  if  you  can  ;  try  to  weave 
the  least  little  romance  about  your  lives 
in  the  midst  of  a  civilization  which  posts 
in  the  public  streets  the  hours  when  the 
coaches  arrive  and  depart ;  which  counts 
the  letters  and  stamps  them  twice  over, 
first  with  the  precise  moment  when  they 
are  thrown  into  the  boxes,  and  next  when 
they  are  distributed  ;  which  numbers  the 
houses,  prints  the  tax  of  each  tenant  on  a 
metal  register  at  the  doors  (after  verify- 
ing its  particulars),  and  which  will  soon 
possess  one  vast  register  of  every  inch  of 
its  territory  dow'n  to  the  smallest  parcel 
of  land,  and  the  most  insignificant  feat- 
ures of  it — a  giant  work  ordained  by  a 


370 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


giant.  Try,  imprudent  young-  ladies,  to 
escape  not  only  the  eye  of  the  police,  but 
the  incessant  chatter  which  takes  place 
in  a  country  town  about  the  veriest  trifles 
— which  counts  how  many  dishes  the  pre- 
fect has  at  his  dessert,  how  many  shces 
of  melon  are  left  at  the  door  of  some 
small  householder,  which  listens  to  catch 
the  chink  of  the  gold  a  thrifty  man  lays 
by,  and  spends  its  evening's  in  calculating 
the  incomes  of  the  villaj^e  and  the  town 
and  the  dei)artment.  It  was  mere  chance 
that  enabled  Modeste  to  escape  discovery 
through  Ernest's  reconnoitering  expedi- 
tion— a  step  for  which  he  was  already 
reproaching  himself ;  but  what  Parisian 
wants  to  be  the  dupe  of  a  little  countiy 
giri  ?  Incapable  of  being  duped  !  that 
maxim  is  the  dissolvent  of  all  noble  sen- 
timents in  man. 

Wc  can  readily  guess  the  struggle  of 
feeling  to  which  this  honest  young  fellow 
fell  a  prey  when  we  read  the  letter  that 
he  now  indited,  in  which  every  stroke  of 
the  flail  which  scourged  his  conscience 
will  be  found  to  have  left  its  trace. 

This  is  what  Modeste  read  S.  few  days 
later,  as  she  sat  b^'  her  window  on  a  fine 
summer's  day : 

# 

•' Mademoiselle — Without  hypocrisy, 
yes,  if  I  had  been  certain  that  you  pos- 
sessed an  immense  fortune  I  should  have 
acted  dilTerently.  Why?  I  have  searched 
for  the  I'enson  ;  here  it  it.  We  have  with- 
in us  an  inborn  feeling,  inordinately  de- 
veloped by  social  life,  which  drives  us  to 
tlie  pursuit  and  to  the  possession  of  hap- 
piness. Most  men  confound  happiness 
with  the  means  that  lead  to  it ;  money 
is  in  their  eyes  the  chief  element  of  hap- 
piness. I  should,  therefore,  have  en- 
deavored to  please  you,  prompted  by 
that  social  sentiment  which  has  in  all 
ages  made  wealth  a  religion.  At  least, 
I  think  I  should.  It  is  not  to  be  expected 
of  a  man  still  young  that  he  can  have  the 
wisdom  which  substitutes  good  sense  for 
the  pleasure  of  the  senses;  within  sight 
of  a  prey  the  brutal  instinct  hidden  in  the 
heart  of  man  drives  him  on.  Instead  of 
a  lesson,  I  should  have  sent  you  compli- 
ments and  flatteries.     Should  I  have  kept 


my  own  esteem  in  so  doing  ?  I  doubt  it. 
Mademoiselle,  in  such  a  case  success 
brings  absolution  :  but  happiness  ?  that 
is  another  thing.  Should  I  have  dis- 
trusted my  vvife  had  I  won  her  in  that 
way  ?  Most  assuredly  I  should.  Your 
advance  to  me  would  sooner  or  later  have 
come  between  us.  Your  husband,  how- 
ever grand  your  fancy  might  have  him, 
would  have  ended  by  reproaching  ;\ou 
for  having  abased  him.  You,  j^ourself, 
might  have  come,  sooner  or  later,  to 
despise  him.  The  strong  man  forgives, 
but  the  poet  laments.  Such,  mademoi- 
selle, is  the  answer  which  my  honesty 
compels  me  to  make  to  you. 

"  And  now,  listen  to  me.  You  have 
the  triumph  of  forcing  me  to  reflect 
deeply — first  upon  .you,  whom  I  do  not 
sufficiently  know ;  next  upon  myself,  of 
whom  I  knew  too  little.  You  have  had 
the  power  to  stir  up  many  of  the  evil 
thoughts  which  crouch  in  all  hearts ;  but 
from  them  something  good  and  generous 
in  me  lias  come  forth,  and  I  greet  j^ou 
with  my  most  fervent  benedictions,  just 
as  at  sea  we  hail  the  lighthouse  which 
shows  the  rocks  on  whicli  we  were  about 
to  perish.  Here  is  my  confession,  for  I 
would  not  lose  your  esteem  nor  my  own 
for  all  the  treasures  of  earth. 

'•I  wished  to  know  who  you  were.  I 
have  just  returned  from  Havre,  where 
I  saw  Francoise  Cochet,  and  followed  her 
to  Ingouville.  You  are  as  beautiful  as 
the  woman  of  a  poet's  dream ;  but  I  do 
not  know  whether  jo\x  are  Mademoiselle 
Vilquin  concealed  under  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville,  or  Mademoiselle  d'Herou- 
ville  hidden  under  Mademoiselle  Vilquin. 
Though  all  is  fair  in  war,  I  blushed  at 
such  spying  and  stopped  short  in  my  in- 
quiries. You  have  roused  my  curiosity  ; 
forgive  me  for  being  somewhat  of  a  wo- 
man ;  it  is,  I  believe,  the  privilege  of  a 
poet. 

"  Now  that  I  have  laid  bare  my  heart 
and  allowed  you  to  read  it,  you  will  be- 
lieve in  the  sinceritj'  of  what  I  am  about 
to  add.  Tliough  the  glimpse  I  had  of  you 
was  all  too  rapid,  it  has  sufficed  to  modifj' 
my  opinion  of  your  conduct.  You  are  a 
poet  and  a  poem,  even  more  than  you  are 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


371 


a  woman.  Yes,  there  is  in  you  something' 
more  precious  than  beauty  ;  you  are  the 
beautiful  Ideal  of  art,  of  fancy.  The 
step  you  took,  blamable  as  it  would  be  in 
an  ordinary  young-  girl,  allotted  to  an 
every-day  destiny,  has  another  aspect  in 
one  endowed  with  the  nature  which  I  now 
attribute  to  you.  Among'  the  crowd  of 
being's  flung-  by  fate  into  the  social  life  of 
this  planet  to  make  up  a  generation,  there 
are  exceptional  ones.  If  your  letter  is  the 
outcome  of  long'  poetic  reveries  on  the 
destiny  which  conventionality  reserves  for 
women,  if,  constrained  by  the  impulse  of 
a  lofty  and  intellig'ent  mind,  you  have 
wished  to  understand  the  life  of  a  man  to 
whom  j'ou  attribute  the  g'ift  of  g'enius,  to 
the  end  that  j'ou  may  create  a  friendship 
withdrawn  from  the  ordinary  relations  of 
life,  with  a  soul  in  comumnion  with  your 
own,  disregai'ding:  thus  the  ordinary  tram- 
mels of  your  sex  —  then,  assuredl\%  you 
are  an  exception.  The  law  which  serves 
to  measure  the  actions  of  the  crowd  is  too 
limited  for  you.  But  in  that  case,  the  re- 
mark in  my  first  letter  returns  in  greater 
force — you  have  done  too  much  or  not 
enough. 

"Accept  once  more  my  thanks  for  the 
service  you  have  rendered  me,  that  of 
compelling  me  to  sound  my  heart.  You 
have  corrected  in  me  the  false  idea,  only 
too  common  in  France,  that  marriage 
should  be  a  means  of  fortune.  While  I 
struggled  with  my  conscience  a  sacred 
voice  spolce  to  me.  I  swore  solemnly  to 
make  my  fortune  mj'self,  and  not  be  led 
by  motives  of  cupidity  in  choosing  the 
companion  of  my  life.  I  have  also  sought 
to  repress  the  blamable  curiosity  you  have 
excited  in  me.  You  have  not  six  millions. 
There  is  no  concealment  possible  in  Havre 
for  a  young  lady  who  possesses  such  a 
fortune ;  you  would  be  discovered  at  once 
by  the  pack  of  hounds  of  great  families 
whom  I  see  in  Paris  on  the  hunt  after 
heiresses,  and  who  have  already'  sent  one, 
the  grand  equerry,  the  .young  duke, 
among  the  Yilquins.  Therefore,  believe 
me,  the  sentiments  I  have  now  expressed 
are  fixed  in  mj'  mind  as  a  rule  of  life, 
from  which  I  have  abstracted  all  influ- 
ences of  romance  or  of  actual  fact. 


"Prove  to  me,  therefore,  that  you  have 
one  of  those  souls  which  maj'  be  forgiven 
for  its  disobedience  to  the  common  law, 
by  perceiving  and  comprehending  the 
spirit  of  this  letter  as  you  did  that  of  my 
first  letter.  If  you  are  destined  to  a 
middle-class  life,  obey  the  iron  law  which 
holds  society  together.  As  a  superior 
woman,  I  admire  3'ou;  but  if  you  seek  to 
obey  an  impulse  wliich  you  ought  to  re- 
press, I  pity  j'ou.  The  all-wise  moral  of 
that  great  domestic  epic  ''  Clarissa  Har- 
lowe  •■  is  that  legitimate  and  honorable 
love  led  the  poor  victim  to  her  ruin 
because  it  was  conceived,  developed,  and 
pursued  beyond  tlie  boundaries  of  family 
restraint.  The  familv,  however  cruel  and 
even  foolish  it  maj'  be,  is  in  the  right 
against  the  Lovelaces.  The  family  is 
Society.  Believe  me,  the  glory  of  a 
young  girl,  of  a  woman,  must  iilways  be 
that  of  repressing  her  most  ardent  im- 
pulses within  the  narrow  sphere  of  con- 
ventionality. If  I  had  a  daughter  able  to 
become  a  Madame  de  Stael,  I  should  wish 
her  dead  at  fifteen.  Can  you  imagine  a 
daughter  of  yours  flaunting  on  the  stage 
of  fame,  exhibiting  herself  to  win  the 
plaudits  of  a  crowd,  and  not  suffer  anguish 
at  the  thought  ?  No  matter  to  what 
heights  a  woman  can  rise  by  the  inward 
poetry  of  her  soul,  she  must  sacrifice  the 
outer  signs  of  superiority  on  the  altar  of 
her  home.  Her  impulse,  her  genius,  her 
aspii-ations  toward  the  good  and  the  sub- 
lime, the  whole  poem  of  a  young  girl's 
being,  should  belong  to  the  man  .she  ac- 
cepts, and  the  children  whom  she  will 
bring  into  the  world.  I  think  I  perceive 
in  you  a  secret  desire  to  widen  the  narrow 
circle  of  the  life  to  which  all  women  are 
condemned,  and  to  put  love  and  passion 
into  marriage.  Ah !  it  is  a  beautiful 
dream  !  it  is  not  impossible  ;  it  is  difficult, 
but  if  realized,  may  it  not  be  to  the  de- 
spair of  souls  wlio  are — forgive  me  the 
hacknej'ed  word — misunderstood  ? 

'•'If  you  seek  a  platonic  friendship  it 
will  be  to  your  sorrow  in  after  years.  If 
3'our  letter  was  a  jest,  discontinue  it. 
This  little  romance  is  to  end  liere— is  it 
not  ?  It  has  not  been  without  fruit.  My 
sense  of  honesty  is  aroused,  and  you,  on 


372 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


your  side,  will  have  learned  something  of 
social  life.  Turn  your  thoughts  to  real 
life ;  throw  the  enthusiasms  you  have 
culled  from  literature  into  the  virtues  of 
your  sex. 

•'Adieu,  mademoiselle.  Do  me  the  honor 
to  grant  me  your  esteem.  Having  geen 
you,  or  one  whom  I  believe  to  be  you,  I 
have  known  that  your  letter  was  simply 
natural ;  a  flower  so  lovely  turns  to  the 
sun — of  poeti-y.  Love  poetry  as  you  love 
flowers,  music,  the  grandeur  of  the  sea, 
the  beauties  of  nature;  love  it  as  an 
adornment  of  the  soul,  but  remember 
what  I  have  had  the  honor  of  telling  you 
as  to  the  nature  of  poets.  Take  care  not 
^o  marry,  as  you  say,  a  fool,  but  seek 
carefully  the  partner  whom  God  has  made 
for  you.  There  are  souls,  believe  me,  who 
are  fit  to  appreciate  you,  and  to  make 
you  happy.  If  I  were  rich,  if  you  were 
poor,  I  would  lay  my  heart  and  my  fort- 
une at  your  feet  some  day  ;  for  I  believe 
your  soul  to  be  full  of  riches  and  of  loj'alty; 
to  you  I  could  confide  my  life  and  my 
honor  in  absolute  security. 

"  Once  more,  adieu,  fairest  daughter  of 
Eve  the  fair." 

The  reading  of  this  letter,  swallowed 
like  a  drop  of  water  in  the  desert,  lifted 
the  mountain  which  weighed  heavily  on 
Modeste's  heart ;  then  she  saw  the  mis- 
take she  had  made  in  arranging  her  plan, 
and  repaired  it  by  giving  Francoise  some 
envelopes  directed  to  herself,  and  telling 
her  not  to  come  to  the  Chalet  again. 
Henceforth  Francoise,  after  returning  to 
her  own  house,  could  put  the  letters  which 
came  from  Paris  into  these  envelopes, 
and  post  them  again,  secretly.  Modeste 
resolved  to  receive  the  postman  herself 
on  the  steps  of  the  Chalet  at  the  hour 
when  he  made  his  delivery. 

As  to  tlio  feelings  that  this  reply,  in 
which  the  noble  heart  of  poor  La  Briere 
beat  beneath  the  brilliant  phantom  of 
Canalis,  excited  in  Modeste,  they  were  as 
multifarious  and  confused  as  the  waves 
which  rushed  to  die  along  the  shore  while, 
with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  wide  ocean,  she 
gave  herself  up  to  the  joy  of  having  (if  we 
dare  say  so)  harpooned  an  angelic  soul 


in  the  Parisian  sea;  of  having  divined  that 
hearts  of  price  might  sometimes  be  found 
in  harmony'  with  genius,  and,  above  all, 
for  having  followed  the  magic  voice  of 
intuition. 

A  vast  interest  was  now  about  to  ani- 
mate her  life.  The  wires  of  her  cage  were 
broken.     Her  thoughts  took  wings. 

"  Oh,  father  !  "  she  cried,  looking  out 
to  the  horizon.  "  Come  back  and  make 
us  very  rich." 

The  answer  which  Ernest  de  la  Briere 
received  five  days  later  will  tell  the  reader 
more  than  any  elaborate  disquisition  of 
ours. 


IX. 


"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis : 

"My  Friend — Sufi"er  me  to  give  you 
that  name — 3'ou  have  delighted  me ;  I 
would  not  have  you  other  than  you  are 
in  this  letter,  the  first — oh,  may  it  not  be 
the  last !  Who  but  a  poet  could  have 
excused  and  understood  a  young  girl  so 
delicatelj'  ? 

"  I  wish  to  speak  to  you  with  the  sin- 
cerity that  dictated  the  opening  lines  of 
your  letter.  And  first,  let  me  sny  that 
fortunately  you  do  not  know  me  at  all. 
I  can  joyfulh'  assure  you  that  I  am  neither 
that  hideous  Mademoiselle  Vilquin  nor  the 
very  noble  and  withered  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville  who  floats  between  twentj' 
and  forty  years  of  age,  unable  to  decide 
on  a  satisfactory  date.  The  Cardinal 
d'Herouville  flourished  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  at  least  a  century  before  the 
cardinal  of  whom  we  boast  as  our  only 
family  glory — for  I  take  no  account  of 
lieutenant-generals,  and  abbes  who  write 
trumpery  little  verses. 

"  Moreover,  I  do  not  live  in  the  mag- 
nificent villa  Vilquin  ;  there  is  not  in  m^' 
.veins,  thank  God,  the  ten-millionth  of  a 
drop  of  that  chilly  blood  which  flows  be- 
hind a  counter.  I  come  on  one  side  from 
Germany,  on  the  other  from  the  south  of 
France  ;  my  mind  hns  a  Teutonic  love  of 
reverie,  my  blood  the  vivacity  of  Provence. 
I  am  noble,  both  on  my  father's  and  on 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


373 


my  mother's  side.  On  my  mother's  I  de- 
rive from  every  page  of  the  Almanach  de 
Gotha.  In  short,  my  precautions  are  well 
taken.  It  is  not  in  any  man's  power,  nor 
even  in  tlie  power  of  the  law,  to  unmasl< 
my  incog'nito.  I  shall  remain  veiled,  un- 
known. 

"As  to  ni}'  person  and  as  to  m}'  'be- 
longings,' as  the  Normans  say,  make 
youi'self  easj'.  I  am  at  least  as  hand- 
some as  the  little  girl  (ignorantly  happy) 
who  attracted  .your  notice,  and  I  do  not 
call  myself  poverty-stricken ;  although  ten 
sons  of  peers  may  not  accompany  me  in 
my  walks.  I  have  seen  the  humiliating 
comedj'^  of  the  heiress  adored  for  her  mil- 
lions plaj'ed  on  my  account.  In  short, 
make  no  attempt,  even  on  a  Avager,  to 
reach  me.  Alas  !  though  free  as  air,  I 
am  watched  and  guarded — by  myself,  in 
tlie  first  place,  and  secondly,  by  peojjle  of 
nerve  and  courage  who  would  not  hesitate 
to  put  a  knife  in  j'our  heart  if  you  tried  to 
penetrate  my  retreat.  I  do  not  say  this 
to  excite  your  courage  or  stimulate  your 
curiosity ;  I  believe  I  have  no  need  of  such 
incentives  to  interest  you  and  attach  you 
to  me. 

"I  will  now  reply  to  the  second  edi- 
tion, considerably  enlarged,  of  your  first 
sermon . 

"  Will  you  have  a  confession  ?  I  said  to 
myself  when  I  saw  you  so  "distrustful,  and 
mistaking  me  for  Corinne  (whose  improvi- 
sations bore  me  dreadfully'),  that  in  all 
probability  dozens  of  Muses  had  already 
led  .you,  rashly  curious,  into  their  valleys, 
and  begged  .vou  to  taste  the  fruits  of  their 
boarding-scliool  Parnassus.  Oh  !  you  are 
perfeGtl.y  safe  with  me,  my  friend  ;  I  maj' 
love  poetry,  but  I  have  no  little  verses  in 
my  pocket-book,  and  mj''  stockings  are, 
and  will  remain,  imma;culately  white.  You 
shall  not  be  pestered  by  'slight  pieces  ' 
in  one  or  more  volumes.  And,  finally, 
should  it  ever  happen  tliat  I  say  to  you 
the  word  '  Come  ! '  you  will  not  find — 
you  know  it  now — an  old  maid,  poor  and 
ugly. 

"  Ah  !  my  friend,  if  you  only  knew  how 
I  regret  that  you  came  to  Havre  !  You 
have  lowered  the  charm  of  what  you  call 
mv  romance.     God  alone  knew  the  ti-eas- 


ure  I  was.  reserving  for  the  man  noble 
enough,  and  trusting  enough,  and  per- 
spicacious enough  to  come — having  faith 
in  my  letters,  having  penetrated  step  by 
step  into  the  depths  of  nxy  lieart — to  come 
to  our  first  meeting  witli  the  simplicity  of 
a  child  :  for  that  was  what  I  dreamed  to 
be  the  innocence  of  a  man  of  genius.  And 
now  you  have  spoiled  my  treasure  !  But 
I  forgive  you  ;  you  live  in  Paris  and,  as 
you  say,  there  is  alwa.ys  a  man  within  a 
poet. 

"Because  I  tell  you  this  will  you  think 
me  some  little  girl  who  cultivates  an  en- 
chanted garden  full  of  illusions  ?  Do  not 
amuse  yourself  by  throwing  stones  into 
the  broken  windows  of  a  long-ruined  cha- 
teau. You,  who  are  witty  and  wise,  liave 
you  not  guessed  that  when  Mademoiselle 
d'Este  received  your  pedantic  lesson  she 
said  to  herself  :  '  No,  dear  poet,  my  first 
letter  was  not  the  pebble  which  a  vaga- 
bond child  flings  about  the  highway  to 
frighten  the  owner  of  the  adjacent  fruit- 
trees,  but  a  net  carefull.v  and  prudentl.y 
thrown  by  a  fisherman  seated  on  a  rock 
above  the  sea,  hoping  for  a  miraculous 
draught.' 

"  All  tliat  3-ou  say  so  beautifully  about 
the  family  has  my  approval.  The  man 
who  is  able  to  please  me,  and  of  whom  I 
believe  m.vself  wortliy,  will  have  my  heart 
and  my  life — with  the  consent  of  my 
parents,  for  I  will  neither  grieve  them, 
nor  take  them  unawares:  liappily,  I  am 
certain  of  reigning  over  them ;  and,  be- 
sides, they  are  wholly  without  prejudices. 
Indeed,  in  every  way,  I  feel  myself  pro- 
tected against  any  delusions  in  my  dream. 
I  have  built  the  fortress  with  my  own 
hands,  and  I  have  allowed  it  to  be  forti- 
fied by  the  boundless  devotion  of  those 
who  watch  over  me  as  if  I  were  a  treas- 
ure— not  that  I  am  unable  to  defend  my- 
self in  the  open,  if  need  be ;  for,  let  me 
say,  circumstances  have  furnished  me 
with  well-tempered  armor  on  which  is 
engraved  the  word  'Disdain.'  I  have 
the  deepest  horror  of  all  that  is  calculatr 
ing — of  all  that  is  not  pure,  disinterested, 
and  wholly  noble,  I  worship  the  beauti- 
ful, the  ideal,  without  being  romantic  ; 
though  I  have  been,  in  my  heart  of  hearts. 


374 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


in  my  dreams.  But  I  recognize  tlie  ti-uth 
of  tlie  various  tilings,  just  even  to  vul- 
garity-, which  you  have  written  me  about 
Society  and  social  life. 

"  For  the  time  being  we  are,  and  we  can 
only  be,  two  friends.  Why  seek  an  un- 
seen friend  ?  you  ask.  Your  person  ni:iy 
be  unknown  to  me,  but  your  mind,  your 
heart  I  knoiv ;  they  please  uie,  and  I  feel 
an  infinitude  of  thoughts  within  my  soul 
which  need  a  man  of  genius  for  their  con- 
fidant. I  do  not  wish  the  poem  of  my 
heart  to  be  wasted ;  I  would  have  it 
known  to  you  as  it  is  to  God.  What  a 
precious  thing  is  a  true,  comrade,  one  to 
whom  we  can  tell  all!  You  will  surely 
not  reject  the  unpublished  leaflets  of  a 
young  girl's  thoughts  when  they  fly  to 
you  like  the  pretty  insects  fluttering 
to  the  sun?  I  am  sure  you  liave  never 
before  met  with  this  good  fortune  of  the 
soul — the  honest  confldonces  of  an  honest 
girl.  Listen  to  her  prattle  ;  accept  the 
music  that  she  has  heretofore  sung  only 
to  herself.  Later,  if  our  souls  are  sisters, 
if  our  characters  warrant  the  attempt, 
some  day  a  white-haired  old  serving-man 
shall  await  you  by  the  wayside  and  lead 
3'ou  to  the  cottage,  the  villa,  the  castle, 
the  palace — I  don't  yet  know  v>'hat  sort  of 
bower  it  will  be,  nor  what  its  color,  nor 
whether  this  conclusion  will  ever  be  pos- 
sible ;  but  you  will  admit,  will  you  not  ? 
that  it  is  poetic,  and  that  Mademoiselle 
d'Este  has  something  in  her.  H;is  she 
not  left  you  free  ?  Has  she  gone  with 
jealous  feet  to  watch  you  in  the  salons  of 
Paris?  Has  she  imposed  upon  you  the 
labors  of  some  high  euiprise,  such  as 
paladins  sought  voluntarily  in  the  olden 
time?  No,  she  asks  a  purelj^  spiritual 
and  mystic  alliance.  Come  to  me  when 
you  are  unhappy,  wounded,  weary.  Tell 
me  all,  hide  nothing;  I  shall  have  balms 
for  all  your  ills.  I  am  twenty  years  of 
age,  dear  friend,  but  I  have  the  sense  of 
fifty,  and  unfortunatelj-  I  have  known 
through  the  experience  of  another  all 
the  hori'ors  and  the  delights  of  love.  I 
know  what  baseness,  what  infamj',  the 
human  heart  can  contain  ;  yet  I  myself 
am  the  most  honest  of  girls.  No,  I  have 
no  illusions ;   but  I  have  something  bet- 


ter, something  real — I  have  beliefs  and 
a  religion.  See!  I  open  the  game  of  our 
confidences. 

"Whomsoever  I  marry — provided  I 
choose  him  for  myself — may  sleep  in 
peace  or  go  to  the  East  Indies,  su)'e 
that  he  will  find  me  on  his  return  work- 
ing at  the  tapestry  which  I  began  before 
he  left  me  ;  and  in  every  stitch  he  shall 
read  a  verse  of  the  poem  of  which  he  has 
been  the  hero.  Yes,  I  have  resolved 
within  my  heart  never  to  follow  my 
husband  where  he  does  not  wish  me  to 
go.  I  will  be  the  divinity  of  his  hearth. 
That  is  my  religion  of  humanitj^.  But 
why  should  I  not  test  and  choose  the  man 
to  whom  I  am  to  be  as  the  life  to  the 
body  ?  Is  a  man  ever  impeded  by  life  ? 
\^'hat  can  that  woman  be  who  thwarts 
the  man  she  loves  ? — It  is  illness,  not  life. 
Py  life,  I  mean  that  joyous  health  which 
makes  each  hour  a  pleasure. 

"But  to  return  to  your  letter,  which 
will  always  be  precious  to  me.  Yes,  jest- 
ing apart,  it  contains  that  which  I  desired, 
an  expression  of  prosaic  sentiments  whicli 
are  as  necessary  to  family  life  as  air  to 
the  lungs;  and  without  which  no  happi- 
ness is  possible.  To  act  as  an  honest 
man,  to  think  as  a  poet,  to  love  as 
women  love,  that  is  what  I  wished  for 
in  my  friend,  and  it  is  now  no  longer  a 
chimera. 

"Adieu,  my  friend.  lam  poor  at  this 
moment.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
I  cling  to  my  concealment,  my  mask,  my 
imi^regnable  fortress.  I  have  read  your 
last  verses  in  the  '  Revue  ' — ah  !  with 
what  delight,  now  that  I  am  initialed 
in  the  austere  and  secret  grandeur  of 
jour  soul. 

"  Will  it  make  j'ou  unhappy  to  know- 
that  a  young  girl  praj-s  for  you ;  that 
you  are  her  solitary  thought — without  a 
rival  except  in  her  father  and  her  mother? 
Can  there  be  any  reason  why  you  should 
reject  these  pages  full  of  ybu,  written  for 
you,  seen  bj-  no  eye  but  yours?  Send  me 
their  counterpart.  I  p.m  so  little  of  a 
woman  yet  that  j'our  confidences — pro- 
vided they  are  full  and  true — will  suffice 
for  the  happiness  of  your 

"O.  d'Este  M." 


31  ODES  TE    MlGXaN. 


375 


"  Good  heavens !  can  I  be  in  love  al- 
ready ?  "-cried  the  3'oung secretarj\  -when 
he  perceived  that  he  hid  held  this  letter 
in  his  hands  more  than  an  hour  after 
reading  it.  "What  shall  I  do?  Slie 
thinks  she  is  writing-  to  the  great  poet  I 
Can  I  continue  the  deception?  Is  she 
a  woman  of  forty,  or  a  girl  of  twenty  ?  "' 

Ernest  was  now  fascin:sted  by  the  great 
gulf  of  the  unknown.  The  unkno^\Ti  is 
the  obscurity  of  infinitude,  and  nothing 
is  more  alluinng.  In  that  somber  vast- 
ness  fires  flash,  and  furrow  and  color  the 
abyss  with  fancies  like  those  of  JIartynn. 
For  a  busy  man  like  Canalis,  an  adven- 
ture of  this  ki:id  is  swept  away  like  a 
harebell  by  a  mountain  torrent,  hut  in 
the  more  unoccupied  life  of  the  young 
secretar3',  this  charming-  giil,  whom  his 
imagination  persistently  connected  with 
tlie  blonde  beauty  at  the  window,  re- 
mnined  in  his  heart,  and  did  as  much 
mischief  in  his  regulated  life  as  a  fox  in 
a  poult i-y -yard.  Ernest  allowed  himself 
to  be  greatly  preoccupied  'by  this  mysteri- 
ous coi'respondent ;  and  he  answered  her 
last  letter  with  another,  a  pretentious 
and  carefully  studied  epistle,  in  which, 
however,  passion  began  to  reveal  itself  in 
spite  of  him. 

'•'Mademoiselle — Is  it  quite  loyal  in 
you  to  enthi'one  yourself  in  the  heai.t  of 
a  poor  poet  with  a  latent  intention  of 
abandoning'  him  if  he  is  not  exacth'  what 
you  wish,  bequeathing  him  endless  re- 
grets—  showing  him  for  a  moment  an 
image  of  perfection,  were  it  onlj'  assumed, 
and  at  any  rate  giving  him  a  foretaste  of 
happiness?  I  was  xery  short-sighted  in 
soliciting  this  letter,  in  which  you  have 
begun  to  unfold  the  elegant  fabric  of 
your  thoughts.  A  man  can  easily  be- 
come enamored  with  a  mysterious  un- 
known who  combines  such  fearlessness 
with  such  originality,  so  much  imagina- 
tion with  so  much  feeling.  Who  would 
not  wisli  to  know  you  after  reading  3'our 
lirst  confidence  ?  It  requires  a  strong 
effort  on  my  part  to  retain  my  senses  in 
thinking  of  you,  for  you  combine  all  that 
can  trouble  the  head  or  the  heart  of  man. 
I  therefore  make  the  most  of  the  little 


self-possession  jom  have  left  me  to  oflfer 
j'ou  ray  humble  remonstrances. 

"Do  you  really  believe,  mademoiselle, 
that  letters,  more  or  less  true  in  relation 
to  the  -life  of  the  writers,  more  or  less  in- 
sincere— for  those  wliich  we  write  to  each 
other  are  the  expressions  of  the  moment 
at  which  we  pen  thein,  and  not  of  the 
general  tenor  of  our  lives — do  you  believe, 
I  say,  that  however  beautiful  they  may 
be,  they  can  at  all  replace  the  representa- 
tion that  we  could  make  of  ouiselves  to 
each  other  by  the  revelations  of  daih- 
intercourse  ?  Man  is  dual.  There  is  a 
life  invisible,  that  of  the  heart,  to  which 
letters  may  suffice ;  and  there  is  a  life 
material,  to  wliich  more  importance  is, 
alas,  attached  than  one  would  believe  at 
your  age.  These  two  existences  must, 
however,  be  made  to  harmonize  in  the 
ideal  which  you  cherish  ;  and  this,  I  may 
remark  in  passing,  is  very  rare. 

"The  pure,  spontaneous,  disinterested 
homage  of  a  solitarj'  soul  which  is  both 
educated  and  chaste,  is  one  of  those  celes- 
tial flowers  wliose  color  and  fragrance 
console  for  everj'  grief,  for  eveiy  wound, 
for  every  betrayal  which  makes  up  the 
life  of  a  literary  man  ;  and  I  thank  you 
with  an  impulse  equal  to  j-our  own.  But 
after  this  poetical  exchange  of  m^"  griefs 
for  the  pearls  of  your  charity,  what  do 
you  expect  ?  I  have  neither  the  genius 
nor  the  splendid  position  of  Lord  Byron  ; 
above  all,  I  have  not  the  halo  of  his  fic- 
titious damnation  and  his  false  social 
woes.  But  what  could  you  have  hoped 
from  him  in  like  circumstances?  His 
friendship  ?  Well,  he  who  ought  to  have 
felt  only  pride  was  eaten  up  by  a  sickly, 
iiTttable  vanity  wliicli  discouraged  friend- 
shi|i.  I,  a  thousand-fold  mors  insignifi- 
cant than  he,  may  I  not  liave  discordances 
of  character  whicli  make  life  unpleasant, 
and  render  friendship  a  burden  heavy 
indeed  to  bear  ?  In  exchange  for  your 
reveries,  what  would  you  gain  ?  The 
dissatisfactions  of  a  life  which  would  not 
be  wholly  yours.  The  compact  is  mad- 
ness. 

"Let  me  tell  you  why.  In  the  first  place, 
3'our  projected  poem  is  a  plagiarism.  A 
young  German  girl,  who  was  not,  like 


376 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


3'ou,  semi-Germaa,  but  altogether  so, 
adored  Goethe  with  the  rash  intoxication 
of  her  twenty  years.  She  made  him  her 
friend,  her  religion,  her  god,  knowing  at 
the  same  time  that  he  was  married.  Ma- 
dame Goethe,  a  worthy  German  woman, 
lent  herself  <to  this  worship  with  a  sly 
good-nature  which  did  not  cure  Bettina. 
But  what  was  the  end  of  it  all?  The 
young  ecstatic  married  a  man  who  was 
younger  and  handsomer  than  Goethe. 
Now,  between  ourselves,  let  us  admit 
that  a  young  girl  who  should  make  her- 
self the  handmaid  of  a  man  of  genius,  his 
equal  througli  comprehension,  and  should 
piously  worship  him  till  death,  like  one 
of  those  divine  figures  sketched  by  the 
masters  on  the  shutters  of  their  mystic 
chapels,  and  who,  when  Germany  lost 
him,  should  have  retired  to  some  solitude 
away  from  men,  like  the  friend  of  Lord 
Bolingbroke — let  us  admit,  I  say,  that 
that  young  girl  would  have  lived  forever, 
inlaid  in  the  glory  of  the  poet  as  Mary 
Magdalene  in  the  cross  and  triumph  of 
our  Lord.  If  that  is  sublime,  what  say 
you  to  the  reverse  of  the  picture  ?  As 
I  am  neither  Goethe  nor  Lord  Byron,  the 
colossi  of  poetry  and  egotism,  but  simply 
the  author  of  a  few  esteemed  verses,  I 
cannot  expect  the  honors  of  a  cult.  I  am 
not  disposed  to  be  a  martyr.  I  have  am- 
bition, and  I  have  a  heart;  I  am  still 
young  and  I  have  my  career  to  make. 
See  me  for  what  I  am.  The  bount3'^  of 
the  king  and  the  protection  of  his  minis- 
ters give  me  sufficient  means  of  living.  I 
have  the  outward  bearing  of  a  very  or- 
dinary' man.  I  go  to  the  soirees  in  Paris, 
like  any  other  empty-headed  fop;  but  in 
a  carriage  whose  wheels  do  not  rest  upon 
a  foundation  which  is  solidified,  as  the 
present  times  demand,  by  property  in- 
vested in  the- funds.  But  if  I  am  not 
rich,  neither  do  I  have  the  reliefs  and 
consolations  of  life  in  a  garret,  the  toil 
uncomprehended,  the  fame  in  penurj% 
which  belong  to  men  who  are  worth  far 
more  than  I — D'Arthez,  for  instance. 

"Ah!  what  prosaic  conclusions  will 
your  young  enthusiasm  find  to  these  en- 
chanting visions.  Let  us  stop  here.  If 
I  have  had  the  happiness  of  seeming  to 


j'ou  a  terrestrial  paragon,  you  have  been 
to  me  a  thing  of  light  and  a  beacon,  like 
those  stars  that  shine  for  a  moment  and 
disappear.  May  nothing  ever  tarnish 
this  episode  of  our  lives.  Were  we  to  * 
continue  it  I  might  love  you  ;  I  might 
conceive  one  of  those  mad  passions  which  | 
rend  all  obstacles,  which  light  fires  in  the 
lieart  whose  violence  is  greater  than  their 
duration.  And  suppose  I  succeeded  in 
pleasing  you  ?  we  should  end  our  tale 
in  the  common  vulgar  way — marriage, 
a  household,  children,  Belise  and  Hen- 
riette  Chrysale  together  ! — could  it  be  ? 
Therefore,  adieu." 


"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis : 

"  My  Friend — Your  letter  gives  me  as 
much  pain  as  pleasure.  But  perhaps  we 
shall  soon  find  nothing  but  pleasure  in 
writing  to  each  other.  Understand  me 
thoroughly.  The  soul  speaks  to  God  and 
asks  him  for  many  things ;  he  is  nmte.  I 
seek  to  obtain  in  you  the  answers  that 
God  does  not  make  to  me.  Cannot  the 
friendship  of  Mademoiselle  de  Gournay 
and  Montaigne  be  revived  in  us  ?  Do  you 
not  remember  the  household  of  Sismonde 
de  Sismondi  in  Geneva  ?  The  loveUest 
home  ever  known,  as  I  have  been  told  ; 
something  like  that  of  the  Marquis  de 
Pescaire  and  his  wife,  who  were  happy  to 
old  age.  Is  it  impossible  that  two  hearts, 
two  harps,  should  exist  as  in  a  symphony, 
answering  each  other  from  a  distance,  vi- 
brating with  delicious  melodj'  in  unison  ? 
Man  alone  of  all  creation  is  in  himself  the 
harp,  the  musician,  and  the  listener.  Do 
you  think  to  find  me  uneasy  and  jealous 
like  ordinary  women  ?  I  know  that  you 
go  into  the  world  and  meet  the  hand- 
somest and  the  wittiest  women  in  Paris. 
Maj'  I  not  suppose  that  some  one  of  those 
mermaids  has  deigned  to  clasp  you  in  her 
cold  and  scalj'  arms,  and  that  she  has  in- 
spired the  answer  whose  prosaic  opinions 
sadden"  me?  There  is  something  in  life 
more  beautiful  than  these  flowers  of  Pa- 
risian coquetry ;   there  grows  a  blossom 


MODE  ST E    MIGNON. 


377 


far  up  those  Alpine  peaks  called  men  of 
genius,  the  glory  of  humanity,  which  they 
fertilize  with  the  dews  their  loftj^  heads 
draw  from  the  skies.  I  seek  to  cultivate 
that  flower  and  make  it  hloom ;  for  its 
wild  3'et  gentle  fragrance  can  never  fail — 
it  is  eternal. 

"  Do  me  the  honor  to  believe  that  there 
is  nothing  low  or  commonplace  in  me. 
Were  I  Bettina,  for  I  know  to  whom  you 
allude,  I  should  never  have  become  Ma- 
dame von  Arnim  ;  and  had  I  been  one  of 
Lord  Byron's  many  loves,  I  should  be  at 
this  moment  in  a  cloister.  You  have 
touched  me  to  the  quick.  You  do  not 
know  me,  but  j'ou  shall  know  me.  I  feel 
within  me  something  that  is  sublime,  of 
which  I  dare  speak  without  vanity.  God 
has  put  into  mj'  soul  the  roots  of  that 
Alpine  flower  born  on  the  summits  of 
which  I  speak,  and  I  will  plant  it  in  an 
earthen-pot  upon  my  window-sill  and  see 
it  die.  No,  that  glorious  flower-cup,  sin- 
gle in  its  beaut^^,  intoxicating  in  its  fra- 
grance, shall  not  be  dragged  through  the 
\'nlgarities  of  life !  it  is  yours — j^ours,  be- 
fore any  eye  has  blighted  it,  yours  for- 
ever !  Yes,  my  poet,  all  my  thoughts  are 
yours,  the  most  secret,  the  most  foolish 
ones,  even ;  my  heart  is  yours  without 
reserve  and  with  its  infinite  affection.  If 
you  should  personally  not  please  me,  I 
shall  never  marry.  I  can  live  the  life  of 
the  heart,  I  can  exist  on  your  mind,  your 
sentiments ;  they  please  me,  and  I  will 
alwaj's  be  what  I  am,  your  friend.  Yours 
is  a  noble  moral  nature  ;  I  have  recog- 
nized it,  I  have  appreciated  it,  and  that 
suffices  me.  In  that  is  all  my  future. 
Do  not  laugh  at  a  young  and  pretty 
handmaiden  who  shrinks  not  from  the 
thought  of  being  some  day  the  old  com- 
panion of  a  poet — a  sort  of  mother  per- 
haps, or  a  housekeeper  ;  the  guide  of  his 
judgment  and  a  source  of  his  wealth. 
This  handmaiden — so  devoted,  so  precious 
to  the  lives  of  such  as  you — is  pure,  disin- 
terested friendship,  to  whom  you  will  tell 
all,  who  listens  and  sometimes  shakes  her 
head  ;  who  knits  bj'  the  light  of  the  lamp 
and  watches  until  the  poet  shall  return 
home  soaked  with  rain,  or  vexed  in  mind. 

"  Such  shall  be  my  destiny  if  I  do  not 


have  that  of  a  liappy  wife  attached  for- 
ever to  her  husband ;  I  smile  alike  at 
either  fate.  Do  you  believe  France  will 
be  any  the  worse  if  Mademoiselle  d'Este 
does  not  give  it  two  or  three  sons,  and 
never  becomes  a  Madame  Vilquin-some- 
thing-or-other  ?  As  for  me,  I  bhall  never 
be  an  old  maid.  I  shall  make  myself  a 
mother,  by  taking  care  of  others  and  by 
my  secret  co-operation  in  the  existence  of 
a  great  man,  to  whom  also  I  shall  carry 
all  my  thoughts  and  all  my  earthh' 
efforts. 

"  I  have  the  deepest  horror  of  common- 
placeness.  If  I  am  free,  if  I  am  rich  (and 
I  know  that  I  am  young  and  pi'etty),  I 
will  never  belong  to  some  idiot,  just  be- 
cause he  is  the  son  of  a  peer  of  France, 
nor  to  a  merchant  who  could  ruin  himself 
and  me  in  a  day,  nor  to  a  handsome 
creature  who  would  be  the  woman  of  the 
household,  nor  to  a  man  of  any  kind  who 
would  make  me  blush  twenty  times  a  day 
for  being  his.  Make  yourself  easy  on  that 
point.  My  father  adores  my  wishes  ;  he 
will  never  oppose  them.  If  I  please  my 
poet,  and  he  pleases  me,  the  glorious 
structure  of  our  love  shall  be  built  so 
high  as  to  be  inaccessible  to  any  kind  of 
misfortune.  I  am  an  eaglet ;  and  you 
will  see  it  in  my  eyes. 

'•  I  shall  not  repeat  what  I  have  already 
said,  but  I  will  put  its  substance  in  the 
least  possible  number  of  words,  and  con- 
fess to  you  that  I  should  be  the  happiest 
of  women  if  I  were  imprisoned  by  love  as 
I  am  now  imprisoned  by  the  wish  and 
will  of  a  father.  Ah  !  m.Y  friend,  let  us 
reduce  to  the  truth  the  romance  that  has 
come  to  us  through  the  first  exercise  of 
my  will : — 

"  A  young  girl,  with  a  lively  imagina- 
tion, locked  up  in  a  tower,  is  wearj'  with 
longing  to  run  loose  in  the  park  where 
her  eyes  only  are  allowed  to  rove.  She 
invents  a  way  to  loosen  her  bars ;  she 
jumps  from  the  casement ;  she  scales  the 
park  wall;  she  frolics  along  the  neigh- 
bor's sward — it  is  the  eternal  comedy. 
Well,  that  young  girl  is  my  soul,  the  neigh- 
bor's park  is  your  genius.  Is  it  not  all 
very  natural  ?  Was  there  ever  a  neigh- 
bor who  would  complain  of    the  pretty 


><0 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDl' 


feet  that  broke  down  .liis   Irellises?     So 
much  for  the  poet. 

"  But  docs  the  lofty  reasoiier  after  the 
fasliion  of  Moliere  want  still  better  rea- 
sons ?  Well,  hei-e  they  are.  My  dear 
Geioute,  marriag'cs  are  usually  made  in 
defiance  of  common-sense.  Parents  make 
inquiries  about  a  young-  man.  If  the 
Leander — who  is  supplied  by  some  friend, 
or  caught  in  a  ball-room — is  not  a  tiiief, 
and  has  no  visible  rent  in  his  reputation, 
if  lie  has  the  necessary  fortune,  if  he 
comes  from  a  coUeg-e  or  a  law-school  and 
so  fulfills  tlie  popular  ideas  of  education, 
and  if  ho  wears  his  clothes  with  a  gentle- 
manly air,  he  is  allowed  to  meet  the 
young  lady,  whose  mother  has  ordered 
her  to  guard  her  tongue,  to  let  no  sign  of 
her  heart  or  soul  appear  on  her  face, 
which  must  wear  the  smile  of  a  danseuse 
finishing  a  pirouette.  These  commands 
are  coupled  with  instructions  as  to  the 
danger  of  revealing  her  real  character, 
and  the  additional  advice  of  not  seeming 
alarmingly  well  educated.  If  the  settle- 
ments have  all  been  agreed  upon,  the  par- 
ents are  good-natured,  enough  to  let  the 
pair  g'et  acquainted  during  the  rai^e  mo- 
ments when  they  are  left  alone  together  ; 
they  talk  or  walk  together,  but  always 
without  the  slightest  freedom,  for  the^' 
know  tliat  they  are  already  bound.  The 
man  is  as  much  dressed  up  in  soul  as  he 
is  in  body,  and  so  is  the  young  girl.  This 
pitiable  comedy,  mixed  with  bouquets, 
jewels,  and  tlieater-parties  is  called  '•'  pay- 
ing one's  addresses."  It  revolts  me:  I 
desire  that  actual  marriage  shall  be  the 
result  of  a  previous  and  long  marriage 
of  souls.  A  young  girl,  a  woman,  has 
throughout  her  life  only  tliis  one  moment 
when  reflection,  second  sight,  and  expe- 
rience are  necessary  to  her.  She  plays 
her  liberty  and  her  happiness,  and  she 
is  not  allowed  to  throw  the  dice ;  she 
risks  her  all,  and  is  forced  to  be  a  mere 
spectator.  I  have  the  right,  the  will, 
the  power  to  make  my  own  unhappiness, 
and  I  use  them,  as  did  m^'  mother,  who, 
won  by  beauty  and  led  hy  instinct,  mar- 
ried the  most  generous,  the  most  liberal, 
the  most  loving  of  men.  I  know  that 
you  are  free,  a  poet,  and  noble-looking. 


Be  sure  that  I  should  not  have  chosen 
for  a  confidant  one  of  your  brothers  in 
Apollo  who  was  already  married.  If  my 
mother  was  won  by  beauty,  which  is  per- 
haps the  spirit  of  form,, why  should  I  not 
be  attracted  by  the  spirit  and  the  form 
united  ?  Shall  I  not  know  you  better  by 
studying  you  in  this  correspondence  than 
I  could  through  the  vulgar  experience  of 
'  receiving  your  addresses  '  ?  That  is  the 
question,  as  Hamlet  says. 

"  But  my  pi-oceedings,  dear  Chrysale, 
have  at  least  the  merit  of  not  binding  us 
personally.  I  know  that  love  has  its  illu- 
sions, and  every  illusion  its  to-morrow. 
That  is  why  there  are  so  many  partings 
among  lovers  who  believed  themselves 
bound  to  each  other  for  life.  Tlie  proof 
of  love  lies  in  two  things — suffering  and 
happiness.  When,  after  passing  through 
these  double  trials  of  life  two  beings  have 
shown  each  other  their  defects  as  well  as 
their  good  qualities,  when  thej'have  really' 
observed  each  other's  character,  then  they 
ma^'  go  to  their  grave  hand  in  hand.  My 
dear  Argante,  who  told  you  that  our  little 
drama  was  to  have  no  future  ?  In  any 
case  shall  we  not  have  enjoyed  the  pleas- 
ures of  our  correspondence  ?  * 

"  I    await    your   orders,    monseigneur, 
and  I  am,  with  all  my  heart, 
"'  Your  handmaiden, 

"O.  d'EsteM." 

"  To  Mademoiselle  O.  d'Este  M. — 
Yon  are  a  witch,  a  spirit,  and  I  love  you  ! 
Is  that  what  you  desired  of  me,  most 
original  of  girls  ?  Perhaps  you  are  only 
seeking  to  amuse  your  provincial  leisure 
with  the  spectacle  of  the  follies  which  a 
poet  can  commit.  If  so,  you  have  done  a 
bad  deed.  Your  two  letters  have  enough 
of  the  spirit  of  mischief  in  them  to  force 
this  doubt  into  the  mind  of  a  Parisian. 
But  I  am  no  longer  master  of  myself ; 
my  life,  my  future  depend  on  the  answer 
3'ou  will  make  me.  Tell  me  if  the  cer- 
tainty of  an  unbounded  affection,  given 
in  ignorance  of  all  social  conventions,  will 
touch  j'ou — if  you  will  suffer  me  to  seek 
you.  There  is  anxiety  enough  and  un- 
certainty enough  in  the  question  as  to 
whether  I  can  personally  please  you.     If 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


379 


your  reply  is  favorable  I  chang-e  my  life, 
I  bid  adieu  to  many  irksome  pleasures 
which  we  have  the  folly  to  call  liappi- 
ness.  Happiness,  my  dear  and  beautiful 
unknown,  is  what  you  dream  it  to  be — 
a  fusion  of  feelings,  a  perfect  accordance 
of  souls,  ihe  im[)rnit  of  a  noble  ideal  (such 
as  God  permits  us  to  form  here  below) 
upon  the  trivial  round  of  daily  life  whose 
habits  we  must  needs  obey,  a  constancj' 
of  heart  more  precious  far  than  what  we 
call  fidelity.  Can  we  say  that  we  make 
saciifices  when  the  end  m  view  is  our 
eternal  good,  the  dream  of  poets,  the 
dream  of  maidens,  the  poem  which,  at 
the  entrance  of  life,  as  soon  as  thoug'ht 
essays  its  wings,  each. noble  intellect  has 
pondered  and  caressed  only  to  see  it  shiv- 
ered to  fragments  on  some  stumbling- 
block  as  hard  as  it  is  vulgar? — for  to 
the  great  majority  of  men,  the  foot  of 
reality  steps  instantly  on  that  mysteri- 
ous Qi^g  so  seldom  hatched. 

'•'  I  will  not  yet  sjaeak  to  jou  of  myself, 
of  my  past  life,  of  my  character,  nor  of 
an  affection  almost  maternal  on  one  side, 
filial  on  mine,  which  you  have  already  se- 
riously changed,  and  whose  effect  upon 
my  life  would  explain  my  use  of  the  word 
'sacrifice.'  You  have  already  rendered 
me  forgetful,  not  to  sa.y  ungrateful ;  does 
that  satisfy'  you  ?  Oh,  speak  !  Saj^  to 
me  one  word,  and  I  will  love  you  till  my 
ej'es  close  in  death,  as  the  Marquis  de 
Pescaire  loved  his  wife,  as  Romeo  loved 
Juliet,  faithfully.  Our  life  will  be,  for 
me  at  least,  that  '  felicity  untroubled ' 
which  Dante  made  the  very  element  of 
his  Paradiso — a  poem  far  superior  to  his 
Inferno.  It  is  strange,  but  it  is  not  mj-- 
self  that  I  doubt  in  the  long  reveries 
through  which,  like  you,  I  follow  the 
windings  of  a  di'eamed  existence  ;  it  is 
you.  Yes,  dear,  I  feel  within  me  the 
power  to  love,  and  to  love  endlessly — to 
march  to  the  grave  with  gentle  slowness 
and  a  smiling  eye,  with  my  beloved  on 
m\'  arm.  and  with  never  a  cloud  upon 
the  sunshine  of  o\ir  souls.  Yes,  I  dare 
to  face  our  uuitual  old  age,  to  see  our- 
selves with  whitening  heads,  like  the 
venerable  historian  of  Ital\',  inspired  al- 
ways with  the  same  affection  but  trans- 


formed with  the  spirit  of  each  season. 
Hear  me,  I  can  no  longer  be  ^-our  friend 
only.  Though  Chrysale,  Geroute,  and 
Argante  re-live,  you  say,  in  me,  I  am 
not  yet  old  enough  to  drink  from  the 
cup  held  to  xny  lips  by  the  sweet  hands 
of  a  veiled  woman  without  a  passionate 
desire  to  tear  off  the  domino  and  the 
mask  and  see  the  face.  Either  write  me 
no  more,  or  give  me  hope.  Let  nie  see 
you,  or  let  me  go.  Must  I  bid  you  adieu  ? 
Will  you  permit  me  to  sign  myself, 

"  YouB  Friexd  ?  " 

"To  Monsieur  de  Canalis  — What 
flattery !  with  what  rapidity  is  the  grave 
Anselme  transformed  into  a  handsome 
Leander !  To  what  must  I  attribute 
such  a  change  ?  to  this  black  which  I 
put  upon  this  white?  to  these  ideas 
which  are  to  the  flowers  of  \nj  soul 
what  a  rose  drawn  in  charcoal  is  to 
the  roses  in  the  garden  ?  Or  to  a  rec- 
ollection of  the  young  girl  whom  you 
took  for  me,  and  who  is  personallj'-  as 
like  me  as  a  waiting-woman  is  like  her 
mistress  ?  Have  we  changed  roles  ? 
Have  I  the  sense  ?  have  ydu  the  fancy  ? 
But  a  truce  with  jesting. 

"Your  letter  has  made  me  know  the 
entrancing  pleasures  of  the  soul ;  the  first 
that  I  have  known  outside  of  my  familu 
aft'ections.  What,  says  a  poet,  are  the 
ties  of  blood  which  are  so  strong  in  ordi- 
nary minds,  compared  to  those  divinely 
forged  within  us  by  mysterious  sj^rapa- 
thies  ?  Let  me  thank  you — no,  we  must 
not  thank  each  other  for  such  things — 
but  God  bless  you  for  the  happiness  you 
have  given  me  ;  may  you  be  happy  in  the 
joj'  you  have  shed  into  my  soul.  You  ex- 
l^lain  to  me  some  of  the  apparent  injus- 
tices in  social  life.  There  is  something,  I 
know  not  what,  so  dazzling-,  so  virile  in 
glory,  that  it  belongs  only  to  man  ;  God 
forbids  us  women  to  wear  its  halo,  but  Ho 
makes  love  oui-  portion,  giving  us  the  ten- 
derness which  soothes  the  brow  scorched, 
by  His  lightnings.  I  have  felt  nw  mis- 
sion, or  rather  you  have  now  confirmed 
it. 

"Sometimes,  my  friend.  I  rise  in  the 
morning  in  a  state  of  inexpressible  sweet- 


380 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


ncss ;  a  sort  of  peace,  tender  and  divine, 
gives  me  an  idea  of  heaven.  My  first 
thoug-ht  is  then  like  a  benediction.  I  call 
these  morning-s  my  little  German  wak- 
ings, in  opposition  to  my  Southern  sun- 
sets, full  of  heroic  deeds,  battles,  Roman 
fetes  and  ardent  poems.  Well,  after 
reading  your  letter,  so  full  of  feverish  im- 
patience, I  felt  in  my  heart  all  the  fresh- 
ness of  one  of  these  celestial  waking's, 
when  I  love  the  air  about  me  and  all 
Nature,  and  fancy  that  I  am  destined  to 
die  for  one  I  love.  One  of  your  poems, 
'The  Maiden's  Song,'  paints  these  de- 
licious moments,  when  gaj'ety  is  tender, 
when  prayer  is  a  necessity ;  it  is  one  of 
mj'^  favorites.  Do  j'ou  want  me  to  put  all 
my  flatteries  into  one  ?  —  well,  then,  I 
think  3^ou  worthy  to  be  me! 

"  Your  letter,  though  short,  enables 
me  to  read  you.  Yes,  I  have  guessed 
your  tumultuous  struggles,  your  piqued 
curiosity',  your  projects ;  but  I  do  not  yet 
know  j'ou  well  enough  to  satisfy  your 
wishes.  Hear  me,  dear;  the  mj^stery  in 
which  I  am  shrouded  permits  me  the  free- 
dom which  lets  you  see  to  the  bottom  of 
my  heart.  I&  we  once  meet,  adieu  to  our 
mutual  comprehension  !  Will  you  make 
a  compact  with  me  ?  Was  the  first  one 
disadvantageous  to  you  ?    It  won  j-ou  my 

fsteem,  and  it  is  a  great  deal,  my  friend, 
o  gain  an  admiration  lined  throughout 
with  esteem.  Write  me  your  life  in  a  few 
words ;  then  tell  me  what  you  do  in  Paris, 
day  by  day,  with  no  reservations,  and  as 
if  you  were  talking  with  an  old  friend. 
Well,  having  done  that,  I  will  take  a  step 
myself — I  will  see  you,  I  promise  you 
that.     And  it  is  a  great  deal. 

"This,  dear,  is  no  intrigue,  no  adven- 
ture; no  gallantry,  as  you  men  call  it,. 
can  come  of  it,  I  warn  you  frankly.  It  in- 
volves my  life,  and  more  than  that — some- 
thing that  causes  me  remorse  for  the 
many  thoughts  that  fly  to  you  in  flocks — 
it  involves  my  father's  and  my  mother's 
life.  I  adore  them,  and  my  choice  must 
please  them ;  they  must  find  a  son  in  my 
friend. 

"  Tell  me,  to  what  extent  can  the  superb 
spirits  of  your  kind,  to  whom  God  has 
given  the  wings  of  His  angels,  without 


always  adding  their  amiability — how  far 
can  they  bend  under  a  family-yoke,  and 
put  up  with  its  little  miseries  ?  That  is 
a  text  I  have  meditated  upon.  Ah ! 
though  I  said  to  my  heart  before  I  came 
to  you  :  Forward  !  Onward  !  it  did  not 
tremble  and  palpitate  any  the  less  on  the 
way ;  and  I  did  not  conceal  from  myself 
the  stoniness  of  the  path  nor  the  Alpine 
difficulties  I  had  to  overcome.  I  thought 
of  all  in  my  long  meditations.  Do  I  not 
know  that  eminent  men  like  you  have 
known  the  love  they  have  inspired  quite 
as  well  as  that  which  they  themselves 
have  felt ;  that  they  have  had  many  ro- 
mances in  their  lives — you  particularlj', 
who  send  forth  those  airy  visions  of  your 
soul  that  women  rush  to  buy  ?  Yet  still 
I  cried  to  myself,  '  Onward  ! '  because  I 
have  studied,  more  than  you  give  me 
credit  for,  the  geography  of  the  great 
summits  of  humanit}',  Avhlch  you  tell  me 
are  so  cold.  Did  you  not  say  that  Goethe 
and  Byron  were  the  colossi  of  egoism  and 
poetry  ?  Ah,  my  friend,  you  shared  there 
the  error  into  which  superficial  minds  are 
apt  to  fall ;  but  in  you  perhaps  it  came 
from  generosity,  false  modesty, .  or  the 
desire  to  escape  from  me  ?  Vulgar  minds 
may  mistake  the  effects  of  toil  for  the 
development  of  personal  character,  but 
you  must  not.  Neither  Lord  Byron,  nor 
Goethe,  nor  Walter  Scott,  nor  Cuvier, 
nor  any  inventor,  belongs  to  himself,  he 
is  the  slave  of  his  idea.  And  this  mys- 
terious power  is  more  jealous  than  a  wo- 
man ;  it  absorbs  them ;  it  makes  them 
live,  and  kills  them  for  its  sake.  The 
visible  developments  of  their  hidden  ex- 
istence resemble  egotism  in  their  results ; 
but  who  shall  dai'o  to  say  that  the  man 
who  has  abnegated  self  to  give  pleasure, 
instruction,  or  grandeur  to  his  epoch,  is 
an  egoist  ?  Is  a  mother  selfish  when  she 
immolates  all  things  to  her  child  ?  Well, 
the  detractors  of  genius  do  not  j^erceive 
its  fecund  maternity,  that  is  all.  The  life 
of  a  poet  is  so  perpetual  a  sacrifice  that 
he  needs  a  gigantic  organization  to  bear 
even  the  ordinary  pleasures  of  life.  There- 
fore, into  what  sorrows  maj'  he  not  fall 
when,  like  Moliere,  he  wishes  to  live  the 
life  of  feeling  in  its  most  poignant  crises  j 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


381 


to  me,   remembering  his    personal    life, 
Moliere's  comic  writings  are  horrible. 

"  The  generosity  of  genius  seems  to  me 
half  divine ;  and  I  place  j'ou  in  tliis  noble 
family  of  alleged  egoists.  Ah  !  if  I  had 
found  self-interest,  ambition,  a  seared 
nature  where  I  now  can  see  my  best 
loved  flowers  of  the  soul,  you  know  not 
what  long-  anguish  I  should  have  had  to 
bear.  I  met  with  disappointment  before 
I  was  sixteen.  What  would  have  become 
of  me  had  I  learned  at  twenty  that  glory 
is  a  lie,  that  he  whose  books  express  the 
feelings  hidden  in  raj  heart  was  incapable 
of  feeling  them  when  they  were  unveiled 
for  him  alone  ?  Oh  !  my  friend,  do  you 
know  what  would  have  become  of  me  ? 
Shall  I  take  you  into  the  recesses  of  my 
soul  ?  I  should  have  gone  to  my  father 
and  said,  '  Bring  me  the  son-in-law 
whom  you  desire ;  my  will  abdicates — 
marry  me  to  whom  you  please.'  And 
the  man  might  have  been  a  notary, 
banker,  miser,  fool,  dullard,  wearisome 
as  a  rainy  day,  common  as  the  usher  of 
a  school,  a  manufacturer,  or  some  brave 
soldier  without  two  ideas — he  would  have 
had  a  resigned  and  attentive  servant  in 
me.  But  what  an  awful  suicide !  never 
could  m}'  soul  have  expanded  in  the  life- 
giving  rays  of  a  beloved  sun.  No  mur- 
mur should  have  revealed  to  my  father, 
or  my  mother,  or  my  children  the  suicide 
of  the  creature  who  at  this  instant  is 
shaking  her  fetters,  casting  lightnings 
from  her  ej'es,  and  flying  toward  jo\i 
with  eager  wing.  See,  she  is  there  in  the 
corner  of  your  room,  like  Polyhymnia, 
breathing  the  air  of  your  presence,  and 
glancing  about  her  with  a  gently  curious 
eye.  Sometimes  in  the  fields  where  my 
husband  would  have  taken  me  to  walk,  I 
should  have  wept,  apart  and  secretly,  at 
sight  of  a  glorious  morning ;  and  in  m.\ 
heart,  or  hidden  in  a  bureau  drawer,  I 
might  have  kept  some  treasure,  the  com- 
fort of  poor  girls  ill-used  bj'  love,  sad, 
poetic  souls. — But  I  believe  in  you,  my 
friend.  That  belief  rectifies  all  the 
thoughts  and  fancies  of  my  secret  ambi- 
tion, and  sometimes  —  see  how  far  my 
frankness  leads  me — I  wish  I  were  in  the 
middle  of  the  book  we  are  just  beginning ; 


such  persistency  do  I  feel  in  my  senti- 
ments, such  strength  in  my  heart  to  love, 
such  constancy  sustained  by  reason,  such 
heroism  for  the  duties  for  which  I  was 
created  —  if  indeed  love  can  ever  be 
changed. 

'•'  If  you  were  able  to  foUow  me  to  the 
exquisite  retreat  where  I  fancy  ourselves 
happy,  if  j-ou  knew  my  plans  and  proj- 
ects, the  dreadful  word  '  folly  ! '  might 
escape  you,  and  I  should  be  cruelly  pun- 
ished for  sending  poetry  to  a  poet.  Yes, 
I  wish  to  be  a  spring  of  waters  inexhausti- 
ble as  a  fertUe  land  for  the  twenty  years 
that  nature  allows  me  to  shine.  I  want 
to  drive  away  satiety  by  charm.  I  mean 
to  be  courageous  for  my  friend  as  most 
women  are  for  the  world.  I  wish  to  vaiy 
happiness.  I  wish  to  put  intelligence 
into  tenderness,  and  to  give  piquancy  to 
fidelity.  I  am  filled  with  ambition  to  kill 
the  rivals  of  the  past,  to  conjure  away  all 
outside  griefs  by  a  wife's  gentleness,  by 
her  pi-oud  abnegation,  and  to  take  all  my 
life  such  care  of  the  nest  as  birds  can 
only  take  for  a  few  weeks.  This  wealth 
of  love  belonged  to  some  great  man,  and 
did  not  deserve  to  be  wasted  in  some 
commonplace  transaction. 

'•  Do  you  now  think  me  to  blame  for  my 
first  letter  ?  The  mj-sterious  wind  of  will 
drove  me  to  you,  as  the  tempest  brings 
the  little  rose-tree  to  the  pollard  willow. 
In  your  letter,  which  I  hold  here  upon  my 
heart,  j'ou  cried  out,  like  your  ancestor 
when  he  departed  for  the  Crusades,  '  God 
wills  it.' 

"Ah  !  but  you  will  cry  out,  'What  a 
chatterbox  ! '  All  the  people  round  me 
say,  on  the  contrary,  '  Mademoiselle  is 
very  taciturn.'  O.  d'Este  M." 


XI. 


The  foregoing  letters  seemed  very  orig- 
inal to  the  persons  from  whom  the  author 
of  the  "  Comedy  of  Human  Life"  obtained 
them  ;  but  their  interest  in  this  duel,  this 
crossing  of  pens  between  two  minds,  while 
the  strictest  incognito  masked  the  faces, 
may  not  be  shared.     For  every  hundred 


382 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


readers,  eiglit\'  might  weary  of  the  battle. 
The  respect  due  to  the  majority  in  every 
nation  under  a  constitutional  government 
leads  us,  therefore,  to  suppress  eleven 
other  letters  exchanged  between  Ernest 
and  Modesto,  during-  the  month  of  Sep- 
tember. If,  later  on,  some  flattering  ma- 
jority should  arise  to  claim  them,  let  us 
hope  that  we  can  then  find  means  to  in- 
sert them  in  their  proper  place. 

Urged  \)y  a  mind  that  seemed  as  ag- 
gressive as  the  heart  was  lovable,  the 
truly  chivalrous  feelings  of  the  poor  secre- 
tary gave;  themselves  free  play  in  these 
suppressed  letters,  which  seem,  perhaps, 
more  beautiful  than  ihe}'-  really  are,  be- 
cause the  imagination  is  charmed  by  a 
sense  of  the  communion  of  two  free  souls. 
Ernesfs  whole  life  was  now  wrapped  up 
in  these  sweet  scraps  of  paper,  as  a  miser 
lives  only  in  his  banknotes  ;  while  in  Mo- 
deste's  soul  a  deep  love  took  the  place  of 
her  delight  in  agitating  a  glorious  life, 
and  being,  in  spite  of  distance,  its  main- 
spring. Ernest's  heart  was  the  comple- 
ment of  Canalis's  glory.  Alas  !  it  often 
Irakes  two  men  to  make  a  perfect  lover, 
just  as  in  literature  we  compose  a  type 
by  collecting  the  peculiarities  of  several 
similar  characters.  Howiiiany  a  time  a 
woman  has  been  heard  to  say  in  her  own 
salon  after  close  and  intimate  conversa- 
tions : 

"  Such  a  one  is  my  ideal  as  to  soul, 
and  I  love  the  other  who  is  only  a  dream 
of  the  senses." 

The  last  letter  written  by  Modeste, 
which  he7'e  follows,  gives  us  a  glimpse  of 
the  enchanted  isle  to  which  the  meander- 
ings  of  this  correspondence  had  led  the 
two  lovers. 

"To  Monsieur  de  Canalis  —  Be  at 
Havre  next  Sunday;  go  to  church  ;  after 
the  morning  mass,  walk  once  or  twice 
round  the  nave,  and  go  out  without  speak- 
ing to  any  one,  or  asking  a  single  ques- 
tion ;  but  wear  a  white  rose  in  your 
button-hole.  Then  return  to  Paris,  where 
you  shall  receive  an  answer.  I  warn  j^ou 
that  this  answer  will  not  be  what  you 
wish  ;  for,  as  I  told  you,  the  future  is  not 
yet  mine.     But  should  I  not  indeed  be 


mad  and  foolish  to  say  yes  without  hav- 
ing seen  you  ?  When  I  have  seen  you  I 
can  say  no  without  wounding  you  ;  I  am 
sure  of  remaining  incognito." 

This  letter  had  been  sent  off  the  evening 
before  the  day  when  the  abortive  struggle 
between  Dumay  and  Modeste  had  taken 
place.  The  happj'  girl  was  iu»patiently 
awaiting  Sunday,  when  her  eyes  were  to 
vindicate  or  condemn  her  heart  and  her 
actions — a  solemn  moment  in  the  life  of 
any  woman,  and  which  three  months  of  a 
close  communion  of  souls  now  rendered  as 
romantic  as  the  most  imaginative  maiden 
could  have  wished.  Every'  one,  except 
the  mother,  had  taken  this  torpor  of  ex- 
pectation for  the  calm  of  innocence.  No 
matter  how  firmly  family  laws  and  relig- 
ious precepts  may  bind,  there  will  always 
be  the  Clarissas  and  tlie  Julies,  whose 
souls  like  flowing  cups  will  overflow  under 
some  spiritual  pressure.  Modeste  was 
glorious  in  the  savage  energy  with  which 
she  repi'essed  her  exuberant  youthful 
happiness  and  remained  demurely  quiet. 
Let  us  say  frankly  that  the  memory  of 
her  sister  was  more  potent  upon  her  than 
any  social  conventions  ;  her  will  was  iron 
in  the  resolve  to  bring  no  grief  upon  her 
father  and  her  mother.  But  what  tumul- 
tuous heavings  were  within  her  breast !  no 
wonder  that  a  mother  guessed  them. 

On  the  following  day  Modeste  and  Ma- 
dame Dumay  took  Madame  Mig-non  about 
mid-day  to  a  seat  in  the  sun  among  the 
flowers.  The  blind  woman  turned  her 
wan  and  blighted  face  toward  the  ocean  ; 
she  inhaled  the  odors  of  the  sea  and  took 
the  hand  of  her  daughter  wlio  remained 
beside  her.  The  motlier  hesitated  between 
forgiveness  and  remonstrance  eie  she  put 
the  important  question  ;  for  she  compre- 
hended the  girl's  love  and  recognized,  as 
the  pretended  Canalis  had  done,  that  Mo- 
deste was  exceptional  in  nature. 
,  "God  grant  that  your  father  return  in 
time  !  If  he  delays  much  longer  he  will 
find  none  but  you  of  all  those  whom  he 
loves.  Modeste,  promise  me  once  more 
never  to  leave  him,"  she  said  in  a  fond 
maternal  tone. 

Modeste  lifted  her  mother's  hands  to 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


U83 


her  lips  and  kissed  them  gently,  replying- : 
"  Need  I  saj'  it  again  ? "' 

"Ah,  my  child!  I  left  my  father  to 
follow  my  husband  ;  and  yet  my  father 
was  all  alone  ;  I  was  all  the  child  he  had. 
Is  that  why  God  has  so  punished  me  ? 
What  I  asK  of  you  is  to  marry  as  your 
father  wishes,  to  cherish  him  in  your 
heart,  not  to  sacrifice  him  to  j'our  own 
happiness,  but  to  make  hiui  the  center 
of  your  home.  Before  losing-  my  sight,  I 
wrote  him  all  my  wishes,  and  I  know  he 
will  execute  them.  I  enjoined  him  to  keep 
his  property  intact  and  in  bis  own  hands  ; 
not  that  I  distrust  you,  my  Modesto,  for 
a  moment,  but  who  can  be  sure  of  a  son- 
in-law?  My  daughter,  was  I  reasonable? 
One  glance  of  the  eye  decided  my  life. 
Beauty,  so  often  deceitful,  in  \\\y  case 
spoke  true:  but  even  were  it  the  same 
Avith  you,  my  poor  child,  swear  to  me  that 
you  will  let  your  father  inquire  into  the 
character,  the  habits,  the  heart,  and  the 
previous  life  of  the  man  j^ou  distinguish 
with  your  love  —  if,  by  chance,  there  is 
such  a  man." 

"I  will  never  marry  without  the  con- 
sent of  my  father, '^answered  Modeste. 

The  mother  was  perfectly  silent  after 
receiving  this  reply,  and  her  death-like 
face  showL'd  that  she  was  meditating  after 
the  manner  of  the  blind,  studying  every 
accent  of  her  daughter's  reply. 

"You  see,  my  darling-,"  she  said,  after 
a  long  pause,  "  that  while  I  am  d^'ing  by 
inches  through  Caroline's  wrong-doing, 
your  father  would  not  survive  youi's,  no, 
not  for  a  moment.  I  know  him  ;  he  would 
put  a  pistol  to  his  head — there  could  be 
no  life,  no  happiness  on  earth  for  him." 

Modeste  walked  a  few  steps  away  from 
her  mother,  but  immediately  came  back. 

"  Why  did  you  leave  me  ?  "  demanded 
Madame  Mignon. 

"  You  made  me  crj',  mamma,"  an- 
swered Modeste. 

"Ah,  my  little  darling,  kiss  me.  You 
\  love  no  one  here  ?  you  have  no  lover,  have 
you  ?  "  she  asked,  holding  Modeste  on  her 
lap,  heart  to  heart. 

"No,  my  dear  mamma,"  said  the  little 
Jesuit. 

"  Can  you  swear  it  ?  " 


"  Oh,  yes !  "  cried  Modeste. 

Madame  Mignon  said  no  more  ;  but  she 
still  doubted. 

"  Well,  if  you  do  choose  your  husband, 
you  will  tell  your  father  ?  "  she  resumed. 

"I  pi'omiscd  that  to  my  sister,  and  to 
3'ou,  mother.  Wliat  evil  do  you  think  I 
could  commit  while  I  wear  that  ring  upon 
my  finger  and  read  those  woixls  :  '  Think 
of  Bettina  '  ?    Poor  sister  !  " 

At  these  words  a  truce  of  silence  came 
between  the  pair  ;  the  mother's  blighted 
eyes  rained  teai's  which  Modeste  could 
not  check,  though  she  tlirew  herself  upon 
her  knees,  and  cried,  "  Forg-ive  me  !  oh, 
forgive  me,  mother  !  " 

Just  then  the  excellent  Duniay  was 
coming  up  the  hill  of  In3j)uville  on  the 
double-quick— a  fact  quite  abnormal  in 
the  present  life  of  the  cashier. 

Three  letters  had  brought  ruin  to  the 
Mignons ;  a  single  letter  now  restored 
their  fortunes.  Tha't  very  morning  Du- 
may  had  received  from  a  sea-captain  just 
arrived  from  the  China  Seas  the  following- 
letter  containing-  the  first  news  of  his  jia- 
tron  and  only  friend. 

"  To  Monsieur  Anne  Dumay : 

"  My  dear  Dumay — I  shall  quickly  fol- 
low, except  for  the  chances  of  the  voyag-e, 
the  vessel  which  carries  this  letter.  In 
fact,  I  should  have  taken  it,  but  I  did  not 
wish  to  leave  nn'own  ship,  to  which  I  am 
accustomed. 

"  I  told  you  that  no  news  was  to  be  good 
news.  But  the  first  words  of  this  letter 
oug-ht  to  make  j'ou  a  happy  man.  I  have 
made  at  least  seven  millions.  I  am  bring- 
ing back  a  large  part  of  it  in  indigo,  one 
third  in  safe  London  securities,  and  an- 
other third  in  good  solid  g-old.  Your  re- 
mittances helped  me  to  make  the  sum  I 
had  settled  in  my  own  mind  nuich  sooner 
than  I  expected.  I  wanted  two  millions 
for  each  of  my  daughters  and  a  compe- 
tence for  myself. 

"I  have  been  engaged  in  the  opium 
trade  with  the  largest  houses  in  Canton, 
all  ten  times  richer  than  I.  You  have  no 
idea,  in  Eui^ope,  what  these  rich  Chinese 
merchants  are.  I  went  to  Asia  Minor  and 
purchased  opium  at  low  prices,  and  from 


384 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


thence  to  Canton,  where  I  delivered  my 
cargoes  to  the  companies  who  control  the 
trade.  My  last  expedition  was  to  the  Phi- 
lippine Islands  where  I  exchanged  opium 
for  indigo  of  the  first  quality.  I  may  have 
five  or  six  hundred  thousand  francs  more 
than  I  stated,  for  I  reckoned  the  indigo  at 
what  it  cost  me.  I  have  always  been  well 
in  health  ;  not  the  slightest  illness.  That 
is  the  result  of  working  for  one's  children. 
Since  the  second  year  I  have  owned  a 
pretty  little  brig  of  seven  hundred  tons, 
called  the  Mignon.  She  is  built  of  oak, 
double-planked,  and  copper-fastened ;  and 
all  the  interior  fittings  were  done  to  suit 
me.  She  is  one  piece  of  property  the 
more. 

"A  sea-life^nd  the  active  habits  re- 
quired by  ray  business  have  kept  me  in 
good  health.  To  tell  you  all  this  is  the 
same  as  telling  it  to  my  two  daughters 
and  my  dear  wife.  I  trust  that  the 
wretched  man  who  *took  away  my  Bet- 
tin  a  deserted  her  when  he  heard  of  my 
ruin  ;  and  that  I  shall  find  the  poor  lost 
lamb  at  the  Chalet.  My  three  dear  women 
and  my  Dumay  !  All  four  of  you  have 
been  ever  present  in  my  thoughts  for  the 
last  three  years.  You  are  a  rich  man, 
now,  Dumay.  You  share,  outside  of  my 
own  fortune,  amounts  to  five  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  francs,  for  which  I  send 
you  herewith  a  check,  which  can  only  be 
paid  to  you  in  person  \ij  the  Mongenods, 
who  have  been  duly  advised  from  New 
York. 

"A  few  short  months,  and  I  shall  see 
you  all  again,  and  all  well,  I  trust.  My 
dear  Dumaj',  I  write  this  letter  to  you  be- 
cause I  am  anxious  to  keep  my  fortune 
a  secret  for  the  present,  and  because  I 
wish  to  leave  to  you  the  task  of  prepar- 
ing my  dear  angels  for  the  joy  of  my  re- 
turn. I  have  had  enough  of  commerce ; 
and  I  am  resolved  to  leave  Havre.  The 
choice  of  my  sons-in-law  is  a  matter  of 
great  moment  to  me.  My  intention  is  to 
buy  back  the  estate  of  La  Bastie,  and  to 
entail  it,  so  as  to  establish  an  estate  yield- 
ing at  least  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a 
year,  and  then  to  ask  the  king  to  grant 
that  one  of  my  sons-in-law  may  succeed 
to  my  name  and  title.     You  know,  my 


poor  Dumay,  what  a  terrible  misfortune 
overtook  us  through  the  fatal  reputation 
of  a  large  fortune.  It  cost  me  my  daugh- 
ter's honor.  I  brought  from  Java  one  of 
the  most  wretched  of  fathers.  He  was  a 
Dutch  merchant,  worth  nine  millions,  and 
his  two  daughters  were  stolen  from  him 
by  scoundrels.  We  wept  together  like 
two  children.  I  haA^e  thei'efore  resolved 
that  the  amount  of  my  present  fortune 
shall  not  be  known.  I  shall  not  disem- 
bark at  Havre,  but  at  Marseilles.'  I  shall 
sell  my  indigo,  and  negotiate  for  the  pur- 
chase of  La  Bastie  through  the  house  of 
Mongenod  in  Paris.  I  shall  put  n\y  funds 
in  the  Bank  of  France  and  return  to  the 
Chalet,  giving  out  that  I  have  a  consider- 
able fortune  in  merchandise.  My  daugh- 
ters will  be  supposed  to  have  two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  francs.  To  choose 
which  of  my  sons-in-law  is  worthy  to  suc- 
ceed to  my  title  and  estates  and  to  live 
with  us  is  now  the  object  of  my  life ;  but 
both  of  them  must  be,  like  you  and  me, 
honest,  loyal,  and  firm  men,  and  abso- 
lutely honorable. 

"  My  dear  old  fellow,  I  have  never 
doubted  you  for  a  moment.  I  have  been 
sure  that  you  and  your  wife^  together 
with  my  own,  have  erected  an  unassail- 
able barrier  around  my  daughter,  and 
that  I  shall  be  able  to  pub  a  kiss  full  of 
hope  upon  the  pure  forehead  of  my  re- 
maining angel.  Bettina-Caroline  will  have 
a  fortune.  We  have  gone  through  wars 
and  commerce  together  and  now  we,  will 
undertake  agriculture;  you  shall  be  my 
bailiff.  You  will  lil\e  that,  will  you  not  ? 
And  so,  old  friend,  I  leave  it  to  your  dis- 
cretion to  tell  what  you  think  best  to  my 
wife  and  daughters ;  I  rely  upon  j'our 
prudence.  In  four  years  great  changes 
may  have  taken  place  in  their  char- 
acters. 

"  Adieu,  my  old  Dumay.  Say  to  my 
daughters  and  to  vay  wife  that  I  have 
never  failed  to  kiss  them  in  my  thoughts 
morning  and  evening  since  I  left  them.  / 
The  second  check  for  forty  thousand 
francs  herewith  inclosed  is  for  my  wife 
and  children  in  the  meantime. 

"Your  colonel  and  friend, 

"Charles  Mignon." 


MODEST E    MIGNON. 


385 


"Your  father  is  coming',"  said  Madame 
Mignon  to  her  daughter. 

i'What  makes  you  think  so,  mamma?" 
asked  Modeste. 

"  Nothing'  else  could  make  Dumay  hurry 
himself." 

"Victory!"  cried  the  lieutenant  as 
soon  as  he  reached  the  garden  gate. 
"Madame,  the  colonel  has  not  heen  ill 
a  moment ;  he  is  coming  back — coming 
back  on  the  Mignon,  a  fine  ship  of  his 
own,  which  together  with  its  cargo  is 
worth,  he  tells  me,  eight  or  nine  hundred 
thousand  francs.  But  he  requires  secrecy 
from  all  of  us  ;  his  heai-t  is  still  wrung 
'bj  the  misfortunes  of  our  dear  departed 
girl." 

"He  has  still  to  learn  her  death,"  said 
Madame  Mignon. 

"  He  attributes  her  disaster,  and  I  think 
he  is  right,  to  the  rapacity  of  young  men 
after  great  fortunes.  My  poor  colonel 
expects  to  find  tlie  lost  sheep  here.  Let 
us  be  happy  among  ourselves,  but  say 
nothing  to  any  one,  not  even  to  Latour- 
nelle,  if  that  is  possible. 

"Mademoiselle,"  he  whispered  in  Mo- 
deste's  ear,  "  write  to  your  father  and 
tell  him  of  his  loss  and  also  the  terrible 
results  on  your  mother's  health  and  eye- 
sight ;  prepare  him  for  the  shock  he  has 
to  meet.  I  will  engage  to  get  the  letter 
into  his  hands  before  he  reaches  Ha\Te, 
for  he  will  have  to  pass  through  Paris  on 
his  way.  Write  him  a  long  letter ;  you 
have  plenty  of  time.  I  will  take  the 
letter  on  Monday  ;  Monday  I  shall  prob- 
ably go  to  Paris." 

Modeste  was  so  afraid  that  Canalis  and 
Dumay  would  meet  that  she  started  hast- 
ily for  the  house  to  write  to  her  poet  and 
put  off  the  rendezvous. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  said  Dumay,  in  a  very 
humble  manner  and  barring  Modeste's 
w;!}-,  "  may  your  father  find  his  daughter 
with  no  other  feelings  in  her  heart  than 
those  she  had  for  him  and  for  her  mother 
before  he  was  obliged  to  leave  her." 

"  I  have  sworn  to  myself,  to  my  sister, 
and  to  my  mother  to  be  the  joy,  the  con- 
solation, and  the  glory  of  my  father,  &.nd 
I  shall  keep  my  oath!  "  replied  Modeste 
with  a  huughtj-  and  disdainful  glance  at 

Balzac — M 


Dumay.  "Do  not  trouble  my  delight  in 
the  thought  of  my  father's  return  with 
insulting  suspicions.  You  cannot  prevent 
a  girl's  heart  from  beating  —  you  don't 
want  me  to  be  a  mummy,  do  30U  ?  "  she 
said.  "My  hand  belongs  to  my  family, 
but  my  heart  is  my  own.  If  I  love  any 
one,  my  father  and  my  mother  will  know 
it.     Does  that  satisfy  j'ou,  monsieur  ?  " 

"  Thank  you,  mademoiselle ;  you  have 
given  me  back  my  life,"  said  Dumay, 
"  but  you  might  still  call  me  Dumay, 
even  when  j'ou  box  my  ears !  " 

"  Swear  to  me,"  said  her  mother,  "that 
3'^ou  have  not  exchanged  a  word  or  a  look 
with  any  young  man." 

"I  can  swear  that,  my  dear  mother," 
said  Modeste,  laughing,  and  lookmg  at 
Dumay,  who  was  watching  her  and  smil- 
ing to  himself  like  a  mischievous  girl. 

'•■  She  must  be  false  indeed  if  you  are 
right,"  cried  Dumaj',  when  Modeste  had 
left  them  and  gone  into  the  house. 

"My  daughter  Modeste  may  have 
faults,"  said  her  mother,  "  but  false- 
hood is  not  one  of  them  ;  she  is  inca- 
pable of  saying  what  is  not  true." 

"  Well !  then  let  us  feel  easy,"  con- 
tinued Dumay,  "and  believe  that  mis- 
fortune has  closed  his  account  with  us." 

"  God  grant  it  !  "  answered  Madame 
Mignon.  "  You  will  see  him,  Dumay ; 
but  I  shall  only  hear  him.  There  is 
much  of  sadness  in  my  joy^" 


XII. 


Modeste,  happy  as  she  was  in  the  re- 
turn of  her  father,  was,  nevertheless, 
pacing  lier  room  as  disconsolate  as  Per- 
rette  on  seeing  her  eggs  broken.  She 
had  hoped  her  father  would  bring  back 
a  much  larger  fortune  than  Dumay  had 
mentioned.  Nothing  could  satisfy  her 
new-found  ambition  on  behalf  of  her 
poet  less  than  at  least  half  the  six  mil- 
lions she  had  talked  of  in  her  second 
letter.  Agitated  by  her  double  joy,  ajid 
by  the  grief  caused  by  her  comparative 
povertj-,  she  seated  herself  at  the  piano, 
that  confidant  of  so  manj'  young  girls, 
who  express  their  wishes  and  desires  on 


386 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


the  keys,  by  the  notes  and  tones  of  their 
music.  Dumay  was  talking-  with  his 
wife  in  the  garden  under  the  windows, 
telling  her  the  secret  of  their  own  wealth, 
and  questioning  her  as  to  her  desires  and 
her  intentions.  Madame  Dumay  had,  like 
her  husband,  no  other  family  than  the 
Mignons.  Husband  and  wife  agreed, 
therefore,  to  go  and  live  in  Px-ovence, 
'\i  the  Comte  de  la  Bastie  reallj'  meant 
to  live  in  Provence,  and  to  leave  their 
money  to  whichever  of  Modeste's  chil- 
dren might  seem  to  need  it  most. 

"Listen  to  Modeste,"  said  Madame 
Mignon,  addressing  them.  "None  but 
a  girl  in  love  can  compose  such  airs 
without  having  studied  music." 

Houses  may  burn,  fortunes  be  engulfed, 
fathers  return  from  distant  lands,  em- 
pires may  crumble  away,  the  cholera 
may  ravage  cities,  but  a  maiden's  love 
wings  its  flight  as  Nature  pursues  her 
way,  or  as  that  alarming  acid  which 
chemistry  has  lately  discovered,  and 
which  will  presently  eat  through  the 
globe,  if  nothing  stops  it  at  the  center. 

Modeste,  under  the  inspiration  of  her 
present  situation,  was  putting  to  music 
certain  stanzas  which  we  are  compelled 
to  quote  here — albeit  they  are  printed  in 
the  second  volume  of  the  edition  Dauriat 
had  mentioned — because,  in  order  to  adapt 
them  to  her  music,  which  had  the  inex- 
pressible charm  of  sentiment  so  admired 
in  great  singers,  Modeste  had  taken  lib- 
erties with  the  lines  in  a  manner  that 
may  astonish  the  admirers  of  a  poet  so 
famous  for  the  correctness,  sometimes  too 
precise,  of  his  measures. 

THE  MAIDEN'S  SONG. 
Heart  awake  !  the  lark  already 

Shakes  his  wings  that  heavenward  rise  ; 
Sleep  no  more  ;  the  waking  violet, 

Watts  her  incense  to  the  skies. 

Flowers  revived,  from  sleep  awaking, 
See  themselves  in  drops  of  dew 

In  the  calyx  of  each  blossom, 
Liquid  pearls  their  mirror  true. 

In  the  night,  the  gpd  of  roses, 

Paused  to  bless  their  dewy  bloom  ; 

See  1  each  bud  grows  brighter  for  him  ; 
Yielding  up  its  rich  perfume. 


Then  awake  I  the  lark  already 
Shakes  his  wings  that  heavenward  rise. 

Naught  is  sleeping — Heart  1  awuking, 
Light  thine  incense  to  the  skies.  * 

"It  is  very  prettj',"  said  Madame  Du- 
may. "  Modeste  is  a  musician,  there's  no 
mistake  about  it." 

"  The  devil  is  in  her  !"  cried  the  cashier, 
into  whose  heart  the  suspicion  of  the 
motlier  forced  its  way  and  made  him 
shiver. 

"She  loves,"  persisted  Madame  Mignon. 

By  succeeding,  through  the  undeniable 
testimony  of  the  song,  in  making  the 
cashier  a  sharer  in  her  belief  as  to  the 
state  of  Modeste's  heart,  Madame  Mignon 
destroyed  the  happiness  which  the  return 
and  the  prosperity  of  his  master  had 
broug-ht  him.  The  poor  Breton  went 
down  the  hill  to  Havre  and  to  his  desk 
in  Gobenheim's  counting-room  with  a 
heavy  heart ;  before  returning  to  dinner, 
he  went  to  see  Latournelle,  to  tell  his 
fears,  and  beg  once  more  for  the  notary's 
advice  and  assistance. 

"Yes,  my  dear  friend,"  said  Dumay, 
when  they  parted  on  the  steps  of  the 
notary's  door,  "  I  now  agree  with  ma- 
dame  ;  she  loves — yes,  I  am  sure  of  it ; 
but  the  devil  knows  who  it  is ;  I  am  dis- 
honored." 

"  Don't  make  yourself  unhappy,  Du- 
may," answered  the  notary.  "Among 
us  all  we  can  surely  g-et  the  better  of  the 
little  puss  ;  sooner  or  later,  everj'  girl  in 
love  betrays  herself  —  yon  may  be  sure 
of -that.  But  we  will  talk  about  it  this 
evening." 

Thus  it  happened  that  all  those  devoted 
to  the  Mignon  family  were  fully  as  dis- 
quieted and  uncertain  as  they  were  before 
the  old  soldier  tried  the  experiment  which 
he  expected  would  be  so  decisive.  The 
ill-success  of  his  past  efforts  so  stimulated 
Dumaj-^'s  sense  of  duty,  that  he  deter- 
mined not  to  go  to  Paris  to  see  after  his 
own  fortune  until  he  had  guessed  the  rid- 
dle of  Modeste's  heart.  These  friends, 
to  whom  feelings  were  more  precious  than 
interests,  well  knew  that  unless  the  daugh- 
ter were  pure  and  innocent,  the  father 
would  die  of  grief  when  he  came  to  know 
the  death  of  Bettina  and  the  blindness 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


387 


of  his  wife.  The  distress  of  poor  Dumay 
made  such  an  impression  on  the  Latour- 
nelles  that  they  even  forgot  their  parting 
with  Exupere,  whom  they  had  sent  off 
that  morning-  to  Paris.  During  dinner, 
while  the  three  were  alone,  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Latournelle  and  Butscha  turned 
tlie  problem  over  and  over  in  their  minds, 
and  discussed  every  aspect  of  it. 

"  If  Modeste  loved  anyone  in  Havre  she 
would  have  shown  some  fear  yesterday," 
said  Madame  Latournelle ;  "  her  lover, 
therefore,  lives  somewhere  else." 

"  She  swore  to  rher  mother  this  morn- 
ing," said  the  notary,  "in  presence  of 
Duma}',  that  she  had  not  exchanged  a 
look  or  a  word  with  any  living  soul." 

"  Then  she  loves  after  my  fashion !  " 
exclaimed  Butscha. 

"And  how  do  you  love,  my  poor  lad  ?  " 
asked  Madame  Latournelle. 

"Madame,"  said  the  little  cripple,"! 
love  alone  and  afar — oh  !  as  far  as  from 
here  to  the  stars." 

"  How  do  you  manage  it,  you  silly 
fellow  ?  "  said  Madame  Latournelle,  smil- 
ing. 

"  Ah,  madame  !  "  said  Butscha,  "what 
you  call  my  hump  is  the  socket  of  my 
wings." 

"  So  that  is  the  explanation  of  your 
seal,  is  it  ?  "  cried  the  notary. 

Butscha's  seal  was  a  star,  and  under 
it  the  words  Fulgens,  sequar — "Shining 
One,  I  follow  thee  " — the  motto  of  the 
house  of  Chastillonest. 

"  A  beautiful  woman  may  feel  as  much 
suspicion  as  the  ugliest,"  said  Butscha, 
as  if  speaking  to  himself ;  "  Modeste  is 
clever  enough  to  fear  she  may  be  loved 
only  for  her  beauty." 

Hunchbacks  are  extraordinary  crea- 
tions, due  entirely  to  society  ;  for,  accord- 
ing to  Nature's  plan,  feeble  beings  ought 
to  perish.  The  cui'vature  or  distortion  of 
the  spinal  column  creates  in  these  out- 
wardly deformed  subjects  as  it  were  a 
storage-battery,  where  the  nerve  cur- 
rents accumulate  more  abundantly  than 
under  normal  conditions — where  they  de- 
velop, and  whence  they  are  emitted  as  if 
in  lightning  flashes,  to  vivify  the  interior 
being.      From  this,  forces  result  which 


are  sometimes  brought  to  light  by  mag- 
netism, though  they  are  far  more  fre- 
quently lost  in  the  vague  spaces  of  the 
spiritual  world.  It  is  rare  to  find  a 
deformed  person  who  is  not  gifted  with 
some  special  faculty  —  a  whimsical  or 
sparkling  gayety  perhaps,  an  utter  ma- 
lignity, or  an  almost  sublime  goodness. 
Like  instruments  which  the  hand  of  art 
can  never  fully  waken,  these  beings, 
highly  privileged  though  they  know  it 
not,  live  within  themselves,  as  Butscha 
lived,  provided  their  natural  forces  so 
magnificently  concentrated  have  not  been 
spent  in  the  struggle  they  have  been 
forced  to  maintain,  against  tremendous 
odds,  to  keep  alive.  This  explains  many 
superstitions,  the  popular  legends  of 
gnomes,  frightful  dwarfs,  deformed  fair- 
ies— all  that  race  of  bottles,  as  Rabelais 
called  them,  containing  elixirs  and  precious 
balms. 

Butscha,  therefore,  had  very  nearly 
guessed  the  puzzle.  With  all  the  curi- 
osity of  a  hopeless  lover,  a  vassal  ever 
ready  to  die — like  the  soldiers  alone  and 
abandoned  in  the  snows  of  Russia,  who 
still  cried  out,  "  Long  live  the  Emperor  " 
— he  meditated  how  to  capture  Modeste's 
secret  for  his  own  private  knowledge.  So 
thinking,  he  followed  his  patrons  to  the 
Chalet  that  evening,  with  a  cloud  of  care 
upon  his  brow  ;  for  he  knew  it  was  most 
important  to  hide  from  all  these  watchful 
eyes  and  ears  the  net  in  which  he  should 
entrap  the  j'oung  girl.  It  would  have  to 
be  by  some  intercepted  glance,  some  sud- 
den start,  as  when  a  surgeon  laj's  his 
finger  on  a  hidden  sore.  That  evening 
Gobenheim  did  not  appear,  and  Butscha 
was  Dumay's  partner  against  Monsieur 
and  Madame  Latournelle.  During  the 
few  moments  of  Modeste's  absence,  about 
nine  o'clock,  to  prepare  for  her  mother's 
bedtime,  Madame  Mignon  and  her  friends 
spoke  openly  to  one  another  ;  but  the  poor 
clerk,  depressed  by  the  conviction  of  Mo- 
deste's love,  in  which  he  also  now  believed, 
seemed  to  pay  as  little  attention  to  the 
discussion  as  Gobenheim-  had  done  on  the 
previous  night. 

"  Well,  what's  the  matter  with  you, 
Butscha?"  cried   Madame  Latournelle; 


388 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  one  would  really  think  you  hadn't  a 
friend  in  the  world." 

Tears  shone  in  the  eyes  of  the  poor  fel- 
low, who  was  the  son  of  a  Swedish  sailor, 
and  whose  mother  had  died  of  grief  at  the 
hospital. 

"  I  have  no  one  in  the  world  but  you," 
he  answered  with  a  troubled  voice  ;  "  and 
your  compassion  is  so  much  a  part  of  your 
relig-ion  that  I  can  never  lose  it — and  I 
will  never  deserve  to  lose  it." 

This  answer  struck  the  sensitive  chord 
of  true  delicacy  in  the  minds  of  all  present. 

"We  all  love  you,  Monsieur  Butscha," 
said  Madame  Mig-non,  much  moved. 

"I've  six  hundred  thousand  francs  of 
my  own,"  cried  Dumay,  "and  you  shall 
be  a  notary  in  Havre,  and  succeed  La- 
toumelle." 

The  American  wife  took  the  hand  of 
the  poor  hunchback  and  pressed  it. 

"What!  you  have  six  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  !  "  exclaimed  Latournelle, 
pricking  up  his  ears  as  Dumay  let  fall  the 
words ;  "  and  you  allow  these  ladies  to 
live  as  they  do  !  Modeste  ought  to  have 
a  fine  horse ;  and  why  doesn't  she  con- 
tinue to  take  lessons  in  music,  and  paint- 
ing, and — " 

"Why,  he  has  only  had  the  money  a 
few  hours  !  "  cried  the  little  wife. 

"  Hush  !  "  murmured  Madame  Mignon. 

While  these  words  were  exchanged, 
Butscha's  august  mistress  turned  toward 
him,  preparing  to  make  a  speech  : — 

"My  son,"  she  said,  "you  are  so  sur- 
rounded by  true  affection  that  it  never 
occurred  to  me  how  my  thoughtless  use 
of  that  familiar  phrase  might  be  con- 
strued ;  but  you  must  thank  me  for  my 
little  blunder,  because  it  has  served  to 
show  3'ou  what  friends  your  noble  quali- 
ties have  won." 

"  Then  you  must  have  news  from  Mon- 
sieur Mignon,"  resumed  the  notaiy. 

"  He  is  on  his  wa^'  home,"  said  Madame 
Mignon;  "but  let  us  keep  the  secret  to 
ourselves.  When  my  husband  learns  how 
faithful  Butscha  has  been  to  us,  how  he 
has  shown  the  warmest  and  most  dis- 
interested friendship  when  others  have 
given  us  the  cold  shoulder,  he  will  not  let 
you  alone  provide  for  him,  Dumay.    And 


so,  my  friend,"  she  added,  turning  her 
blind  face  toward  Butscha;  "j'ou  can 
begin  at  once  to  negotiate  with  Latour- 
nelle." 

"  He's  of  legal  age,  twenty-five  and  a 
half  years.  As  for  me,  it  will  be  paying 
a  debt,  my  boy,  to  make  the  purchase 
easy  for  you,"  said  the  notary. 

Butscha  was  kissing  Madame  Mignon 's 
hand,  and  his  face  was  wet  with  tears  as 
Modeste  opened  the  door  of  the  salon. 

"  What  are  you  doing  to  vny  Black 
Dwarf?  "  she  demanded.  "Who  is  mak- 
ing him  unhappy  ?  "     , 

"  Ah !  Mademoiselle  Modeste,  do  we 
luckless  fellows,  cradled  in  misfortune, 
ever  weep  for  grief?  They  have  just 
shown  me  as  much  affection  as  I  could 
feel  for  them  if  they  were  indeed  my  owyn 
relations.  I'm  to  be  a  notary ;  I  shall  be 
rich.  Ha  !  ha  !  the  poor  Butscha  may 
become  the  rich  Butscha.  You  don't 
know  what  audacity  there  is  in  this  abor- 
tion," he  cried. ' 

With  that  he  gave  himself  a  resounding 
blow  on  the  cavity  of  his  chest  and  took 
up  a  position  before  the  fire-place,  after 
casting  a  glance  at  Modeste,  which  shpped 
like  a  ray  of  light  between  his  heav^^  half- 
closed  eyelids.  He  perceived,  in  this  un- 
expected incident,  an  opportunity  of  in- 
terrogating the  heart  of  his  sovereign. 
Dumay  thought  for  a  moment  that  the 
clerk  dared  to  aspire  to  Modeste,  and  he 
exchanged  a  rapid  glance  Avith  his  friends, 
who  understood  him,  and  began  to  ej'e 
the  little  man  with  a  species  of  terror 
mingled  with  curiosity. 

"I,  too,  have  my  dreams,"  said  But- 
scha, not  taking  his  eyes  from  Modeste. 

The  young  girl  lowered  her  eyelids  with 
a  movement  that  was  a  revelation  to  the 
young  man. 

"  You  love  romance,"  he  continued,  ad- 
dressing her.  "Let  me,  in  this  moment 
of  happiness,  tell  you  mine  ;  and  you  shall 
tell  me  in  return  whether  the  conclusion 
of  the  tale  I  have  invented  for  my  life 
is  possible.  To  me  wealth  would  bring 
greater  happiness  than  to  other  men ; 
for  the  highest  happiness  I  can  imagine 
would  be  to  enrich  the  one  I  loved.  You, 
mademoiselle,  who  know  so  many  things. 


MODEST E    MIGNON. 


389 


tell  me  if  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  make 
himself  beloved  independentlj'  of  his  per- 
son, be  it  handsome  or  ugly,  and  for  his 
spirit  only  ?  " 

Modeste  raised  her  eyes  and  looked  at 
Butscha.  It  was  a  piercing  and  ques- 
tioning glance ;  for  she  shared  Dumay's 
suspicion  of  Butscha's  motive. 

"  Let  me  be  rich,  and  I  will  seek  some 
beautiful  poor  girl,  abandoned  like  my- 
self, who  has  suffered,  and  who  knows 
what  misery  is.  I  will  write  to  her,  con- 
sole hei',  and  be  her  guardian  spirit ;  she 
shall  read  my  heart  and  my  soul ;  she 
shall  possess  my  double  wealth — my  gold, 
delicately  offered,  and  my  thought  robed 
in  all  the  splendor  which  the  accident  of 
birth  has  denied  to  my  grotesque  body. 
But  I  myself  shall  remain  hidden  like  the 
cause  that  science  seeks.  God  Himself 
may  not  be  glorious  to  the  eye.  Well, 
naturally,  the  maiden  will  be  curious; 
she  will  wish  to  see  me ;  but  I  shall  tell 
her  that  I  am  a  monster  of  ugliness ;  I 
shall  picture  myself  hideous." 

At  these  words  Modeste  looked  intently 
at  Butscha.  If  she  had  said  aloud,  "  What 
do  you  know  of  my  love  ?  "  she  could  not 
have  been  more  explicit. 

"  If  I  have  the  honor  of  being  loved  for 
the  poeui  of  my  heart,  if  some  day  such 
love  may  make  a  woman  think  me  only 
slightly  deformed,  confess,  mademoiselle, 
that  I  shall  be  happier  than  the  hand- 
somest of  men— as  happy  as  a  man  of 
genius  beloved  by  some  celestial  being 
like  yourself." 

The  color  which  suffused  the  young 
girl's  face  told  the  cripple  nearly  all  he 
sought  to  know. 

"  Well,"  he  went  on,  "  if  we  enrich  the 
one  we  love,  if  we  please  the  spirit  and 
withdraw  the  body,  is  not  that  the  way 
to  make  one's  self  beloved  ?  At  any  rate 
it  is  the  dream  of  the  poor  dwarf  —  a 
dream  of  yesterday ;  for  to-day  your  mo- 
ther gives  me. the  key  to  future  wealth 
\iy  promising  me  the  means  of  buying  a 
practice.  But  before  I  become  another 
Gobenheim,  I  seek  to  know  whether  this 
dream  could  be  really  carried  out.  What 
do  j'ou  say,  mademoiselle,  yow?" 

Modeste  was  so  astonished  that  she  did 


not  notice  the  question.  The  trap  of  the 
lover  was  much  better  baited  than  that 
of  the  soldiei',  for  the  poor  girl  was  ren- 
dei^ed  speechless. 

"Poor  Butscha  !"  whispered  Madame 
Latoui'nelle  to  her  husband.  "Would  he 
make  a  fool  of  himself  ?  " 

"You  want  to  realize  the  story  of 
Beauty  and  the  Beast,"  said  Modeste  at 
length;  "but  you  forget  that  the  Beast 
turned  into  Prince  Charming." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  said  the  dwarf. 
' '  Now  I  have  always  thought  that  that 
transformation  meant  the  phenomenon 
of  the  soul  made  visible,  obliterating  the 
form  under  the  light  of  the  spirit.  If  I 
were  not  loved  I  should  stay  hidden,  that 
is  all.  You  and  yours,  raadame,"  he  con- 
tinued, addressing  his  mistress,  "  instead 
of  having  a  dwarf  at  j^our  service,  will 
now  have  a  life  and  a  fortune." 

So  saying,  Butscha  resumed  his  seat, 
remarking  to  the  three  whist-players 
with  an  assumption  of  calmness,  "Whose 
deal  is  it?  "  but  within  his  soul  he  whis- 
pered sadly  to  himself :  "  She  wants  to 
be  loved  for  herself ;  she  corresponds 
with  some  pretended  great  man ;  how 
has  it  gone  ?  " 

"  Dear  mamma,  it  is  a  quarter  to  ten 
o'clock,"  said  Modeste. 

Madame  Mignon  said  good-night  to  her 
friends,  and  went  to  bed. 

They  who  wish  to  love  in  secret  may 
have  Pyrenean  hounds,  mothers,  Dumays, 
and  Latoiu'nelles  to  spy  upon  them,  and 
not  be  in  anj^  danger  ;  but  when  it  comes 
to  a  lover  ! — ah  !  that  is  diamond  cut  dia- 
mond, flame  against  flame,  mind  to  mind, 
an  equation  whose  terms  are  mutual. 

On  Sunday  morning  Butscha  arrived 
at  the  Chalet  before  Madame  Latour- 
nelle,  who  always  came  to  take  Modeste 
to  church,  and  he  proceeded  to  blockade 
the  house  in  expectation  of  the  post- 
man. 

"  Have  you  a  letter  for  Mademoiselle 
Mignon?  "  he  said  to  that  humble  func- 
tionary when  he  appeared. 

"No,  monsieur,  none." 

"  This  house  has  been  a  good  customer 
to  the  post  of  late,"  remarked  the  clerk. 

"  Yes,  indeed/'  replied  the  man. 


390 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


Modcste  both  heard  and  saw  the  little 
colloquy  from  her  chamber  window,  where 
she  always  posted  herself  behind  the  blinds 
at  this  particular  hour  to  watch  for  the 
postman.  She  ran  downstairs,  went  into 
the  little  garden,  and  called  in  an  impera- 
tive voice — 

"Monsieur  Butscha  ! " 

"Here  I  am,  mademoiselle,"  said  the 
cripple,  reaching-  the  gate  as  Modeste 
herself  opened  it. 

"  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell  me 
whether  among  your  various  titles  to  a 
woman's  affection  you  count  that  of  the 
shameless  spying  in  which  you  are  now 
engaged?"  demanded  the  girl,  attempt- 
ing to  crush  her  slave  with  the  glance 
and  gesture  of  a  queen. 

'•Yes,  mademoiselle,"  he  answered 
proudly.  "Ah!  I  never  expected,"  he 
continued  in  a  low  tone,  "that  the  grub 
could  be  of  service  to  a  star — but  so  it 
is.  Would  you  rather  that  your  mother 
and  Monsieur  Duraay  and  Madame  La- 
tournelle  had  guessed  youv  secret  than 
one,  excluded  as  it  were'  from  life,  who 
seeks  to  be  to  you  one  of  these  flowers 
that  3'ou  cut  and  wear  for  a  moment  ? 
They  all  know  yoi^  love  ;  but  I,  I  alone, 
know  how.  Use  me  as  you  would  a 
vigilant  watch-dog ;  I  will  obej^  3'ou, 
protect  you,  and  never  bark ;  neither 
will  I  condemn  you.  I  ask  only  to  be  of 
service  to  you.  Your  father  has  made 
Dumay  keeper  of  the  hen-roost,  take 
Butscha  to  watch  outside  —  poor  But- 
scha, who  doesn't  ask  for  anything,  not 
so  much  as  a  bone." 

"Well,  I  will  give  you  a  trial,"  said 
Modeste,  whose  strongest  desire  was  to 
get  rid  of  so  clever  a  watcher.  "Please 
go  at  once  to  all  the  hotels  in  Graville 
and  in  Havre,  and  ask  if  a  gentleman 
has  arrived  from  England  named  Mon- 
sieur Arthur — " 

"Listen  to  me,  mademoiselle,"  said 
Butscha,  interrupting  Modeste  respect- 
fully. "  I  wUl  willingly'  go  and  take  a 
walk  on  the  seashore,  for  you  don't  want 
me  to  go  to  church  to-day." 

Modeste  looked  at  her  dwarf  in  silent 
astonishment. 

"  Mademoiselle,  you  have  wrapped  your 


face  in  cotton-wool  and  a  silk  handker- 
chief, but  there's  nothing  the  matter  with 
3'ou  ;  and  j'ou  have  put  that  thick  veil  on 
your  bonnet  to  see  some  one  yourself 
without  being  seen." 

"  Where  did  you  acquire  all  that  pene- 
tration ?  "  cried  Modeste,  blushing. 

"Moreovei",  mademoiselle,  you  have 
not  put .  on  your  corset ;  a  cold  in  the 
head  wouldn't  oblige  you  to  disfigure 
your  waist  and  wear  half  a  dozen  petti- 
coats, nor  hide  your  hands  in  these  old 
gloves,  and  j'our  pretty  feet  in  those 
hideous  shoes,  nor  dress  3'ourself  like  a 
beggar-woman,  nor — " 

"That's  enough,"  she  said.  "How 
am  I  to  be  certain  that  you  will  obey 
me?." 

"  My  master  is  obliged  to  go  to  Sainte- 
Adresse.  He  does  not  like  it,  but  he  is 
so  truly  good  he  won't  deprive  me  of  my 
Sunday  ;  I  will  offer  to  go  for  him." 

"  Go,  and  I  will  trust  you." 

"  You  are  sure  I  can  do  nothing  for  you 
in  Havre  ?  " 

' '  Nothing.  Hear  me,  mysterious  dwarf 
— look,"  she  continued,  pointing  to  the 
cloudless  sk3' ;  "  can  you  see  a  single  trace 
of  that  bird  that  flew  by  just  now  ?  No  ; 
well  then,  my  actions  are  as  pure  as  the 
air,  and  leave  no  stain  behind  them.  You 
may  reassure  Dumaj'  and  the  Latour- 
nelles,  and  my  mother.  That  hand,"  she 
said,  holding  up  a  pretty  delicate  hand, 
with  the  points  of  the  rosy  fingers, 
through  which  the  light  shone,  slightly 
turning  back,  "  will  never  be  given,  it 
will  never  even  be  kissed  b^'-  what  people 
call  a  lover  until  my  father  has  returned." 

"  Why  don't  \'ou  want  me  in  thechurch 
to-day?" 

"  Do  you  venture  to  question  me  after 
all  I  have  done  you  the  honor  to  say,  and 
to  ask  of  you  ?  " 

Butscha  bowed  without  another  word, 
and  departed  to  find  his  master,  in  all 
the  rapture  of  being  taken  into  the  ser- 
vice of  his  goddess. 

Half  an  hour  later.  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Latournelle  came  to  fetch  Modeste. 
who  complained  of  a  dreadful  toothache. 

"  I  really  have  not  the  courage  to  dress 
myself,"  she  said. 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


391 


"  Well,  then,"  replied  the  worthy  chap- 
eron, "stay  at  home." 

"Oh,  no!"  said  Modeste.  "I  would 
rather  not.  I  have  bundled  myself  up, 
and  I  don't  think  it  will  do  me  any  harm 
to  go  out." 

And  Mademoiselle  Mignon  marched  off 
beside  Latournelle,  refusing  to  take  his 
arm  lest  she  should  be  questioned  about 
the  outward  trembling-  which  betrayed 
her  inward  agitation  at  the  thought  of 
at  last  seeing  her  great  poet.  One  look, 
the  first — would  it  not  decide  her  fate  ? 


xm. 


In  the  life  of  man  there  is  no  more  de- 
lightful moment  than  that  of  a  first  ren- 
dezvous. The  sensations  then  hidden  at 
the  bottom  of  our  hearts,  which  are  find- 
ing their  first  expression,  can  never  be 
renewed.  Can  we  feel  again  the  name- 
less pleasures  that  we  felt '  when,  like 
El-nest  de  la  Briere,  we  looked  up  our 
sharpest  razors,  our  finest  shirt,  an  irre- 
procichable  collar,  and  our  best  clothes  ? 
We  deif3^  the  garments  associated  with 
that  all-supreme  moment.  We  weave 
within  us  poetic  fancies  quite  equal  to 
those  of  the  woman  ;  and  the  day  when 
either  party  guesses  them  they  take 
wings  to  themselves  and  fly  away.  Are 
not  such  things  like  the  flower  of  wild 
fruits,  bitter-sweet,  grown  in  the  heart 
of  a  forest,  the  joy  of  the  scant  sun-rays, 
the  joy,  as  Canalis  says  in  the  "  Maiden's 
,  Song,"  of  the  plant  itself  whose  eyes  un- 
closing see  its  own  image  within  its 
breast  ? 

Such  emotions,  now  taking  place  in  La 
Briere,  tend  to  show  that,  like  other  poor 
fellows  for  whom  life  begins  in  toil  and 
care,  he  had  never  yet  been  loved.  Ar- 
riving at  Havre  overnight,  he  had  gone 
to  bed  at  once,  like  a  true  coquette,  to 
obliterate  all  traces  of  fatigue  ;  and  now, 
after  taking  his  bath,  he  had  put  himself 
into  a  costume  carefully  adapted  to  show 
him  off  to  the  best  advantage.  This  is. 
perhaps,  the  right  moment  to  exhibit  his 
portrait,  if  only  to  justify  the  last  letter 
that  Modeste  was  still  to  write  to  him. 


He  was  of  a  good  family  in  Toulouse, 
and  allied  by  marriage  to  the  minister 
who  first  took  him  under  his  protection ; 
he  had  that  air  of  good-breeding  which 
comes  of  an  education  begun  in  the  cradle; 
and  the  habit  of  managing  business  af- 
fairs gave  him  a  certain  sedateness  which 
was  not  pedantic  —  though  pedantry  is 
the  natural  outgrowth  of  premature 
gravity'.  He  was  of  ordinary  height ;  his 
face,  which  won  upon  all  w'ho  saw  him  by 
its  delicacy  and  sweetness,  was  warm  in 
the  flesh-tints,  though  without  color,  and 
relieved  by  a  small  mustache  and  im- 
perial a  la  Mazarin.  Without  this- evi- 
dence of  virility  he  might  have  resembled 
a  3'oung  woman  in  disguise,  so  refined 
was  the  shape  of  his  face  and  the  cut  of 
his  lips,  so  feminine  the  transparent  ivory 
of  a  set  of  teeth,  regular  enough  to  have 
seemed  artificial.  Add  to  these  womanly 
points  a  habit  of  speech  as  gentle  as  the 
expression  of  the  face  ;  as  gentle,  too,  as 
the  blue  eyes  with  their  Turkish  eyelids, 
and  you  will  readily  understand  how  it 
was  that  the  minister  occasionally  called 
his  young  secretary  Mademoiselle  de  la 
Briere.  The  full,  clear  forehead,  well 
framed  by  abundant  black  hair,  was 
dreamy,  and  did  not  contradict  the  char- 
acter of  the  face,  which  was  altogether 
melancholy.  The  prominent  arch  of  the 
upper  eyelid,  though  ver3'  beautifully  cut, 
overshadowed  the  glance  of  the  eye,  and 
added  a  physical  sadness— if  we  may  so 
call  it — produced  when  the  lids  droop  too 
heavily  over  the  eyeball.  This  inward 
doubt — which  is  called  modesty— was  ex- 
pressed in  his  whole  person.  Perhaps  we 
shall  be  able  to  make  his  appearance  bet- 
ter understood  if  we  say  that  the  logic  of 
design  required  greater  length  in  the  oval 
of  his  head,  more  space  betw^een  the  chin, 
which  ended  abruptly,  and  the  forehead, 
which  was  reduced  in  height  by  the  way 
in  which  the  hair  grew.  The  face  had,  in 
short,  a  rather  compressed  appearance. 
Hard  work  had  already  drawn  furrows 
between  the  eyebrows,  which  were  some- 
what too  thick  and  too  near  together,  like 
those  of  a  jealous  nature.  Though  La 
Briere  was  then  slight,  he  belonged  to 
the  class  of  temperaments  which  begin. 


392 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


after  they  are  thirty,  to  take  on  an  unex- 
pected amount  of  flesh. 

The  young-  man  would  have  seemed  to 
a  student  of  French  history  a  very  fair 
representative  of  the  royal  and  almost 
inconceivable  figure  of  Louis  XIII. — that 
historical  fig-ure  of  melancholy  modesty 
without  known  cause  ;  pallid  beneath  the 
crown  ;  loving-  the  dang-ers  of  war  and  the 
fatigues  of  hunting,  but  hating  work; 
timid  with  his  mistress  to  the  extent  of 
keeping  away  from  her ;  so  indifferent  as 
to  allow  the  head  of  his  friend  to  be  cut  off 
— a  figure  that  nothing-  can  explain  but 
his  remoi-se  for  having  avenged  his  father 
on  his  mother.  Was  he  a  Catholic  Ham- 
let, or  merely  the  prey  of  some  incurable 
disease  ?  But  the  undying  worm  which 
gnawed  at  the  king's  vitals  was  in  Ernest's 
case  simply  distrust  of  himself — the  tim- 
idity of  a  man  to  whom  no  woman  had 
ever  said,  "  Ah,  how  I  love  thee  !  "  and, 
above  all,  the  spirit  of  self-devotion  with- 
out an  object.  After  hearing-  the  knell  of 
the  monarchy  in  the  fall  of  his  patron's 
ministry,  the  poor  fellow  had  next  met  in 
Canalis  a  rock  covered  with  exquisite 
mosses ;  he  was,  therefore,  still  seeking  a 
power  to  love,  and  this  spaniel-like  search 
for  a  master  gave  him  outwardly  the  air 
of  a  king  who  has  met  with  his.  This 
play  of  feeling,  and  a  g-eneral  tone  of 
suffering  in  the  young  man's  face  made  it 
more  really  beautiful  than  he  was  himself 
aware  of ;  for  he  had  always  been  annoyed 
to  find  himself  classed  by  women  among 
the  "handsome  disconsolate"  —  a  class 
which  has  passed  out  of  fashion  in  these 
daj's,  when  every  man  seeks  to  blow  his 
own  trumpet  and  put  himself  forward. 

The  self-distrustful  Ernest  now  rested 
his  immediate  hopes  on  the  fashionable 
clothes  he  intended  to  wear.  He  put  on, 
for  this  sacred  interview,  where  every- 
thing depended  on  a  first  impression,  a 
pair  of  black  trousers  and  carefully  pol- 
ished boots,  a  sulphur-colored  waistcoat, 
which  left  to  sight  an  exquisitely  fine  shirt 
with  opal  buttons,  a  black  cravat,  and 
a  small  blue  surtout  coat  which  seemed 
glued  to  his  back  and  shoulders  by  some 
newly-invented  process.  The  ribbon  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor  was  in  his  buttonhole. 


He  wore  a  well-fitting  pair  of  kid  gloves 
of  the  Florentine  bronze  color,  and  carried 
his  cane  and  hat  in  the  left  hand  with  a 
gesture  and  air  that  was  worthy  of  the 
Grand  Monarch,  and  enabled  him  to 
show,  as  the  sacred  precincts  required, 
his  bare  head  with  the  light  falling  on  its 
carefully  arranged  hair.  He  stationed 
himself  before  the  service  began  in  the 
church  porch,  from  whence  he  could  ex- 
amine the  church,  while  watching  the 
Christians — more  particularly  the  female 
Christians — -who  dipped  their  fingers  in 
the  holy  water. 

An  inward  voice  cried  to  Modesto  as 
she  entered,  '■  It  is  he  !  "  That  surtout, 
and  the  whole  bearing  of  the  young  man, 
were  essentially  Parisian  ;  the  ribbon,  the 
gloves,  the  cane,  the  perfumed  hair,  were 
not  of  Havre.  So  when  La  Briere  turned 
about  to  examine  the  tall  and  imposing 
Madame  Latournelle,  the  notary,  and  the 
bundled-up  (expression  sacred  to  women) 
figure  of  Modeste,  the  poor  child,  though 
she  had  carefully  tutored  herself  for  the 
event,  received  a  violent  blow  on  her  heart 
when  her  eyes  rested  on  this  poetic  figure, 
illuminated  by  the  full  light  of  day  as  it 
streamed  through  the  open  door.  She 
could  not  be  mistaken ;  a  small  white 
rose  nearly  hid  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion. 
Would  he  recognize  his  unknown  mistress 
muffled  in  an  old  bonnet  with  a  double 
veil?  Modeste  Was  so  in  fear  of  love's 
clairv'oyance  that  she  began  to  stoop  in 
her  walk  like  an  old  woman. 

"Wife,"  said  little  Latournelle  as  they 
took  their  places,  "that  gentleman  does 
not  belong  to  Havre." 

"So  many  strangers  come  here,"  an- 
swered his  wife. 

"But,"  said  the  notary,  "strangers 
never  come  to  look  at  a  church  like  ours, 
which  is  less  than  two  centuries  old." 

Ernest  remained  in  the  porch  through- 
out the  service  without  seeing  any  woman 
who  realized  his  hopes.  Modeste,  on  her 
part,  could  not  control  the  trembling  of 
her  limbs  until  mass  was  nearly  over. 
She  was  in  the  grasp  of  a  joy  that  none 
but  she  herself  could  depict.  At  last  she 
heard  the  foot-fall  of  a  gentleman  on  the 
pavement  of  the  aisle.    The  service  over. 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


393 


La  Briere  was  making  a  circuit  of  the 
church,  where  no  one  now  remained  but 
the  punctiliously  pious,  whom  he  pro- 
ceeded to  subject  to  a  shrewd  and  keen 
analysis.  Ernest  noticed  that  a  prayer- 
book  shook  violently  in  the  hands  of  a 
veiled  woman  as  he  passed  her ;  and  as 
she  alone  kept  her  face  hidden,  his  sus- 
picions were  aroused,  and  then  confirmed 
by  Modeste's  manner,  which  the  lover's 
e^-e  now  scanned  and  noted.  He  left  the 
church  with  the  Latournelles  and  followed 
them  at  a  distance  to  the  Rue  Ro\'ale, 
where  he  saw  them  enter  a  house  accom- 
panied by  Modeste,  whose  custom  it  was 
to  stay  with  her  friends  till  the  hour  of 
vespers.  After  examining  the  little  house, 
which  was  ornamented  with  scutcheons, 
he  asked  the  name  of  the  owner,  and  was 
told  that  he  was  Monsieur  Latournelle, 
the  chief  notary  in  Ha\Te.  As  Ernest 
lounged  along  the  Rue  Royale,  hoping 
for  a  chance  to  enter  the  house,  Modeste 
caught  sight  of  him,  and  thereupon  de- 
clared herself  far  too  ill  to  go  to  vespers, 
and  Madame  Latournelle  stayed  to  keep 
her  company'.  Poor  Ernest  thus  had  his 
trouble  for  his  pains.  He  dared  not  wan- 
der about  Ingouville  ;  moreover,  he  made 
it  a  point  of  honor  to  obe^'  orders,  and  he 
therefore  went  back  tq  Paris,  previously 
writing  a  letter  which  Frangoise  Cochet 
duly  received  on  the  morrow,  postmarked 
Havre. 

It  was  the  custom  of  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Latournelle  to  dine  at  the  Chalet 
every  Sunday  when  they  brought  Mo- 
deste back  after  vespers.  So,  as  soon  as 
the  invalid  felt  a  little  better,  they  started 
for  Ingouville,  accompanied  by  Butscha. 
Once  at  home,  the  happy  Modeste  forgot 
her  pretended  illness  and  her  disguise, 
and  dressed  herself  charmingly,  hum- 
ming as  she  came  down  to  dinnei* — 

"  Naught  is  sleeping — Heart  !  awaking. 
Lift  thine  incense  to  the  skies." 

Butscha  shuddered  slightly  when  he 
caught  sight  of  her,  so  changed  did  she 
seem  to  him.  The  wings  of  love  were 
fastened  to  her  shoulders ;  she  had  the 
air  of  a^nymph,  a  Psyche ;  her  cheeks 
glowed  with  the  divine  color  of  happiness. 


"  Who  wrote  the  words  to  which  you 
have  put  that  pretty  music  ?  "  asked  her 
mother. 

"  Canalis,  mamma,"  she  answered, 
flushing  rosy  red  from  her  throat  to 
her  forehead. 

"  Canalis  !  "  cried  the  dwarf,  to  whom 
the  inflections  of  the  girl's  voice  and  her 
blush  told  the  only  thing  of  which  he 
was  still  ignorant.  "Does  that  great 
poet  write  songs  ?  " 

"They  are  only  simple  verses,"  she 
said,  "which  I  have  ventured  to  set  to 
German  ah's." 

"No,  no,"  interrupted  Madame  Mi- 
gnon,  "the  music  is  your  own,  my 
daughter." 

Modeste,  feeling  that  she  grew  more 
and  more  crimson,  went  off  into  the  gar- 
den, calling  Butscha  after  her. 

"You  can  do  me  a  great  service,"  she 
said.  "  Dumay  is  keeping  a  secret  from 
my  mother  and  me  as  to  the  fortune 
which  my  father  is  bringing  back  with 
him ;  and  I  want  to  know  \\'hat  it  is.  Did 
not  Dumay  send  papa  when  he  first  went 
away  over  five  himdred  thousand  francs  ? 
Yes.  "Well,  papa. is  not  the  kind  of  man 
to  stay  away  four  years  and  only  double 
his  capital.  It  setjms  he  is  coming  back 
on  a  ship  of  his  own,  and  Dumay's  share 
amounts  to  almost  six  hundred  thousand 
francs." 

"  There's  no  need  to  question  Dumay," 
said  Butscha.  "  Your  father  lost,  as  j'ou 
know,  about  four  millions  when  he  went 
away,  and  he  has  doubtless  recovered 
them.  He  would  of  course  give  Dumay 
ten  per  cent  of  his  profits ;  the  w;orthy 
man  admitted  the  other  day  how  much 
it  was,  and  my  master  and  I  think  that 
in  that  case  the  colonel's  fortune  must 
amount  to  six  or  seven  millions — " 

"  Oh,  papa  !  "  cried  Modeste,  crossing 
her  hands  on  her  breast  and  looking  up 
to  heaven,  "twice  j'ou  have  given  me 
life  ! " 

"  Ah,  mademoiselle  !  "  said  Butscha, 
"you  love  a  poet.  That  kind  of  man  is 
more  or  less  of  a  Narcissus.  Will  he 
know  how  to  love  j-ou  ?  A  phrase- 
maker,  always  busy  in  fitting  words  to- 
gether, is  very  tiresome.     Mademoiselle, 


394 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


a  poet  is  no  more  poetry  than  a  seed  is  a 
flower." 

"Butscha,  I  never  saw  such  a  hand- 
some man." 

"  Beauty  is  a  veil  which  often  serves  to 
hide  imperfections." 

"He  has  the  most  ang-elic  heart — " 

"I  pray  God  you  may  be  right,"  said 
the  dwarf,  clasping:  his  hands,  " — and 
happy  !  That  man  shall  have,  like  you, 
a  servant  in  Jean  Butscha.  I  will  not  be 
notary' ;  I  shall  give  that  up ;  I  shall 
study  the  .sciences." 

"Why?" 

"  Ah,  mademoiselle,  to  teach  your  chil- 
dren, if  you  will  deign  to  make  me  their 
tutor.  But,  oh  !  if  you  would  only  listen 
to  some  advice.  Lst  me  take  up  this 
matter ;  let  me  look  into  the  life  and 
habits  of  this  man — find  out  if  he  is  kind, 
or  bad-tempered,  or  gentle,  if  he  com- 
mands the  respect  which  you  merit  in 
a  husband,  if  he  is  able  to  love  utterly, 
preferring  j^ou  to  everything,  even  his 
own  talent — ". 

"  What  does  that  signify  if  I  love 
him  ?  "  she  asked  naively. 

"Ah,  true  !  "  cried  the  dwarf. 

At  the  same  moment  Madame  Mignon 
was  saying  to  her  friends — 

"  My  daughter  saw  Ihe  man  she  loves 
this  morning." 

"  Tlien  it  must  have  been  that  sulphur 
waistcoat  which  puzzled  you  so,  Latour- 
nelle,"  said  his  wife.  "The  young  man 
had  a  pretty  white  rose  in  his  button- 
hole." 

"  Ah  !  "  sighed  the  mother,  "  the  sign 
of  recognition." 

"And  he  also  wore  the  ribbon  of  an 
officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  He  is  a 
charming  young  man.  But  we  are  all 
deceiving  ourselves  ;  Modeste  never  raised 
her  veil,  and  her  clothes  were  huddled  on 
like  a  beggar-woman's — " 

"And  she  said  she  was  ill,"  cried  the 
notaiy  ;  "but  she  has  taken  off  her  muf- 
flings  and  is  just  as  well  as  she  ever 
was." 

"  It  is  incomprehensible  !"  said  Dumay. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  the  notary ;  "it  is 
now  as  clear  as  daj'." 

"My  child,"  said  Madame  Mignon  to 


Modeste,  as  she  came  into  the  room,  fol- 
lowed by  Butscha,  "  did  you  see  a  well- 
dressed  3'oung  man  at  church  this  morn- 
ing, with  a  white  rose  in  his  button-hole?" 

"  I  saw  him,"  said  Butscha  quickly,  pei'- 
ceiving  by  everybody's  strained  attention 
that  Modeste  was  likelj'  to  fall  into  a 
trap.  "  It  was  Grindot,  the  famous  ar- 
chitect, with  \^•hom  the  town  is  in  treaty 
for  the  restoration  of  the  church.  He  has 
just  come  from  Paris,  and  I  met  him  this 
morning  examining  the  exterior  as  I  was 
on  my  waj'  to  Sainte-Adresse." 

"Oh,  an  architect,  was  he?  he  puzzled 
me,"  said  Modeste,  for  whom  Butscha 
had  thus  gained  time  to  recover  herself. 

Dumay  looked  askance  at  Butscha. 
Modeste,  fully  warned,  recovered  her  im- 
penetrable composure.  Dumay's  distrust 
was  now  thoroughly  aroused,  and  he  re- 
solved to  go  to  the  mayor's  office  earlj'  in 
the  morning  and  ascertain  if  the  architect 
had  really  been  in  Havre  the  previous 
day.  Butscha,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
equally  determined  to  go  to  Paris  and 
find  out  something  about  Canalis. 

Gobenheim  came  to  plaj'  whist,  and  by . 
his  presence  subdued  and  compressed  all 
these  fermenting  feelings.  Modeste  await- 
ed her  mother's  bedtime  with  impatience. 
She  intended  to  write,  but  never  did  so 
except  at  night.  Here  is  the  letter  which 
love  dictated  to  her  while  all  the  world 
was  sleeping  : 

"  To  Monsieur  de  Canalis — Ah  I  my 
friend,  my  well-beloved  !  What  atrocious 
falsehoods  those  portraits  in  the  shop- 
windows  are  !  And  I,  who  made  that 
horrible  lithograph  my  joj'  !— I  am  hum- 
bled at  the  thought  of  loving  one  so 
handsome.  No ;  it  is  impossible  that 
those  Parisian  women  are  so  stupid  as 
not  to  have  seen  their  dreams  fulfilled  in 
you.  You  neglected  !  you  unloved  !  I 
do  not  believe  a  word  of  all  that  you  have 
written  me  about  your  lonely  and  obscure 
life,  your  devotion  to  an  idol — sought  in 
vain  until  now.  You  have  been  too  well 
loved,  monsieur ;  your  brow,  white  and 
smooth  as  a  magnolia  leaf,  reveals  it ; 
and  I  shall  be  neglected — for  who  am  I? 
Ah  !  why  have  you  called  me  to  life  ? 


MODESTE    MIONON. 


3&5 


"  I  felt  for  a  moment  as  though  the 
heavy  burden  of  the  flesh  was  leaving 
me;  my  soul  had  broken  the  crystal 
which  held  it  captive;  it  pervaded  my 
whole  being-;  the  cold  silence  of  material 
things  had  ceased  ;  all  things  in  Nature 
had  a  voice  and  spoke  to  me.  The  old 
chui'ch  was  luminous.  Its  arched  roof, 
brilliant  with  gold  and  azure,  like  those  of 
an  Italian  cathedral,  sparkled  above  my 
head.  Melodies  such  as  the  angels  sang 
to  martyrs,  quieting  their  pangs,  sounded 
from  the  organ.  The  roug-h  pavements 
of  Havre  seemed  to  my  feet  a  flowery 
pathway ;  the  sea  spoke  to  me  with  a 
voice  of  sympathy,  like  an  old  friend 
whom  I  had  never  truly  understood.  I 
saw  clearly  how  the  roses  in  my  garden 
and  hot-house  had  long  adored  me  and 
bidden  me  love ;  they  lifted  their  heads 
and  smiled  as  I  came  back  from  church. 
I  heard  your  name,  'Melchior,'  chiming 
in  the  flower-bells  ;  I  saw  it  written  on 
the  clouds.  Yes,  I  am  living,  thanks  to 
thee — my  poet,  more  beautiful  than  that 
cold,  conventional  Lord  Byron,  with  a 
face  as  dull  as  the  English  climate.  One 
glance  of  thine,  thine  Orient  glance, 
pierced  through  my  double  veil  and  sent 
thy  blood  to  my  heart,  and  thence  from 
head  to  foot.  Ah  !  that  is  not  the  life 
our  mother  gave  us.  A  hurt  to  thee 
would  hurt  me  too  at  the  very  instant  it 
was  given — my  life  exists  by  thj^  thought 
only.  I  know  now  the  purpose  of  the 
divine  faculty  of  music;  the  angels  in- 
vented it  to  utter  love.  Ah,  my  Mel- 
chior, to  have  genius  and  to  have  beauty 
is  too  much;  a  man  should  be  made  to 
choose  between  them  at  his  birth. 

"  When  I  think  of  the  treasures  of  ten- 
derness and  affection  which  you  have 
given  me,  more  especially  during  the  last 
month,  I  ask  myself  if  I  dream.  No,  but 
you  hide  some  mystery  ;  what  woman  can 
yield  j'ou  up  to  me  and  not  die  ?  Ah  ! 
jealousy  has  entered  my  heart  with  love 
— a  love  in  which  I  could  not  have  be- 
lieved. How  could  I  have  imagined  so 
miglitj'  a  conflagration?  And  now  — 
strange  and  inconceivable  revulsion  ! — I 
would  rather  you  were  ugly. 

"  What  follies  I  committed  after  I  came 


home  !  The  yellow  dahlias  reminded  me 
of  your  pretty  waistcoat,  the  white  roses 
were  my  friends ;  I  bowed  to  them  with 
a  look  that  belonged  to  you,  like  all  that 
is  of  me.  The  very  color  of  the  gloves, 
molded  to  hands  of  a  gentleman,  your 
step  along  the  nave — all,  all,  is  so  printed 
on  my  memory  that  sixty  years  hence  I 
shall  see  the  veriest  trifles  of  this  fete 
day — the  color  of  the  atmosphere,  the 
ray  of  sunshine  that  flickered  on  a  cer- 
tain pillar ;  I  shall  hear  the  prayer  your 
step  interrupted  ;  I  shall  inhale  the  in- 
cense of  the  altar;  and  I  shall  fancy  I 
feel  above  our  heads  the  priestly  hands 
that  blessed  us  both  as  you  passed  by 
me  at  the  closing  benediction.  The  good 
Abbe  Marceliu  married  us  then !  The 
happiness,  above  that  of  earth,  which  I 
feel  in  this  new  world  of  unexpected  emo- 
tions can  only  be  equaled  by  the  joy  of 
telling  it  to  j'ou,  of  sending  it  back  to 
him  who  poured  it  into  my  heart  with  the 
lavishness  of  the  sun  itself.  No  more 
veils,  no  more  disguises,  my  beloved. 
Come  back  to  me,  oh,  come  back  soon. 
With  joy  I  now  unniask. 

"You  have  no  doubt  heard  of  the 
house  of  Mignon  in  Havre?  Well,  I  am, 
through  an  irreparable  misfortune,  its 
sole  heiress.  But  you  are  not  to  look 
down  upon  us,  descendant  of  an  Au- 
vergne  knight ;  the  arms  of  the '  Mignon 
de  la  Bastie  will  do  no  dislionor  to  those 
of  Canalis.  We  bear  gules,  on  a  bend 
sable  four  bezants  or ;  quarterly  four 
crosses  patriarchal  or  :  with  a  cardinal's 
hat  as  crost,  and  the  fiocchi  for  supports. 
Dear,  I  will  be  faithful  to  our  motto  : 
Una  fides,  unus  Do  minus ! — the  true 
faith,  and  one  only  Master. 

"  Perhaps,  my  friend,  you  will  find  some 
irony  in  mj'  name,  after  all  that  I  have 
done,  and  all  that  I  herein  avow.  I  am 
named  Modeste.  Therefore  I  have  not 
deceived  you  by  signing  'O.  d'Este  M.' 
Neither  have  I  jnisled  you  about  our  fort- 
une ;  it  will  amount,  I  believe,  to  the  sum 
which  rendered  yo\x  so  virtuous.  And  I 
know  that  toj'ou  money  is  a  consideration 
of  such  small  importance  that  I  speak  of 
it  without  reserve.  Let  me  tell  you  how 
happj'  it  makes  me  to  give  freedom  of 


396 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


action  to  our  happiness — to  be  able  to 
say,  wlien  the  fancy  for  travel  takes  us, 
'  Come,  let  us  g'o  in  a  comfortable  car- 
riag-e,  sitting  side  by  side,  without  a 
thought  of  monej^ ' — happy,  in  short,  to 
tell  the  king,  '  I  have  the  fortune  which 
you  require  in  j-our  peers.'  Thus  Modesto 
Mig-non  can  be  of  service  to  you,  and  her 
gold  will  have  the  noblest  of  uses. 

"■  As  to  your  .servant  herself — 3-ou  did 
see  her  once,  at  her  window.  Yes,  'the 
fairest  daughter  of  Eve  the  fair '  was 
j-our  unknown ;  but  how  little  the  Mo- 
desto of  to-day  resembles  her  of  that 
long  past  era !  That  one  was  in  her 
shroud,  this  one — have  I  not  told  you  ? 
— has  received  from  you  the  life  of  life. 
Love,  pure  and  sanctioned,  the  love  my 
father,  now  returning  rich  and  prosper- 
ous, will  authorize,  has  raised  me  with 
its  powerful  yet  childlike  hand  from  the 
grave  in  which  I  slept.  You  have  wak- 
ened me  as  the  sun  wakens  the  flowers. 
The  eyes  of  your  beloved  are  no  longer 
those  of  the  little  Modesto  so  daring  in 
her  ignorance — no,  thej^  are  dimmed  with 
the  sight  of  happiness,  and  the  lids  close 
over  them.  To-day  I  tremble  lest  I  can 
never  deserve  my  fate.  The  king  has 
come  in  his  glory ;  my  lord  has  now  a 
subject  who  asks  pardon  for  the  liberties 
she  has  taken,  like  the  gambler  with 
loaded  dice  after  cheating  Monsieur  de 
Grammont. 

"  My  cherished  poet !  I  will  be  thy  Mi- 
gnon — happier  far  than  the  Mignon  of 
Goethe,  for  thou  wilt  leave  me  in  mine  own 
land — in  thy  heart.  Just  as  I  Avrite  this 
pledge  of  our  betrothal  a  nightingale  in 
the  Vilquin  park  answers  for  tliee.  Ah, 
tell  me  quick  th^t  his  note,  so  pure,  so 
clear,  so  full,  which  fills  my  heart  with 
joy  and  love  like  an  Annunciation,  does 
not  lie  to  me. 

"  My  father  will  pass  through  Paris  on 
his  way  from  Marseilles ;  the  house  of 
Mongenod,  with  whom  he  corresponds, 
will  know  his  address.  Go  to  him,  my 
Melchior,  and  tell  him  that  you  love  me  ; 
but  do  not  try  to  tell  him  how  I  love  j-ou 
— let  that  remain  forever  between  our- 
selves and  God.  I,  my  dear  one,  am 
nbout  to  tell  everything  to  my  mother. 


Her  heart  will  justify  my  conduct ;  she 
will  I'ejoice  in  our  secret  poem,  so  ro- 
mantic, luiman  and  divine  in  one. 

"  You  have  the  confession  of  the  daugh- 
ter ;  you  must  now  obtain  the  consent  of 
the  Comte  de  la  Bastie,  the  father  of  your 

"MoDESTE. 

"  P.  S. — Above  all,  do  not  come  to 
Havre  without  having  first  obtained  m.y 
father's  consent.  If  you  love  me  you  will 
find  him  as  he  passes  through  Paris." 

"  What  are  you  doing  at  this  time  of 
night,  Mademoiselle  Modesto?"  said  the 
voice  of  Dumay  at  her  door. 

"  Writing  to  my  father,"  she  answered ; 
"did  you  not  tell  me  you  should  start  in 
the  morning  ?  " 

Dumay  had  nothing  to  say  to  that,  and 
he  went  to  bed,  while  Modeste  wrote  an- 
other long  letter,  this  time  to  her  father. 

On  the  morrow,  Frangoise  Cochet,  ter- 
rified at  seeing  the  Havre  postmark  on 
the  envelope  which  Ernest  had  mailed  the 
night  before,  brought  her  young  mistress 
the  following  letter,  taking  away  the  one 
which  Modeste  had  written. 

"  To  Mademoiselle  O.  d'Este  M. — My 
heart  tells  me  that  you  were  the  woman 
so  carefully  veiled  and  disguised,  and 
seated  between  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Latournelle,  who  have  but  one  child,  a 
son.  Ah,  my  love,  if  you  hnd  only  a 
modest  station,  without  distinction,  or 
importance,  or  even  money,  you  do  not 
know  how  happy  that  would  make  me. 
You  ought  to  understand  me  by  this  time ; 
why  will  3'ou  not  tell  me  the  truth  ?  I  am 
no  poet — except  in  heart,  through  love, 
through  you.  Oh  !  what  power  of  affec- 
tion there  is  in  me  to  keep  me  here  in  this 
hotel,  instead  of  mounting  to  Ingouville, 
which  I  can  see  from  my  windows.  Will 
you  ever  love  me  as  I  love  you  ?  To  leave 
Havre  in  such  uncertainty  is  to  be  pun- 
ished for  loving  you  as  if  I  had  committed 
a  crime?  But  I  obey  you  blindly.  Let 
me  have  a  letter  quickly,  for  if  you  have 
been  mysterious,  I  have  returned  you 
mystery  for  mystery,  and  I  must  at  last 
throw  off  my  disguise,  show  you  the  poet 
that  I  am,  and  abdicate  my  borrowed 
glory." 


MODESTE    MIGSON. 


397 


This  letter  made  Modesto  very  uneas}-. 
She  could  not  get  back  the  one  which 
Frangoise  had  already  posted,  before  she 
came  to  the  last  words,  whose  meaning' 
she  now  sought  hj  reading  them  again 
and  again  ;  but  she  went  to  her  own  room 
and  wrote  an  answer  in  which  she  de- 
manded an  immediate  explanation. 


XIV. 


While  these  little  events  were  taking 
place,  other  little  events  were  occurring 
in  Havre,  which  caused  Modeste  to  forget 
her  present  uneasiness.  Dumay  went 
down  to  Havre  early  in  the  morning,  and 
soon  discovered  that  no  architect  had 
been  in  town  the  day  before.  Furious  at 
Butscha's  lie,  which  revealed  a  conspira- 
cy of  which  he  was  resolved  to  know  the 
meaning,  he  rushed  from  the  mayor's 
office  to  his  friend  Latouraelle. 

'•  Where's  -your  Master  Butscha  ?  "  he 
demanded  of  the  notary,  when  he  saw 
that  the  clerk  was  not  in  his  place. 

"  Butscha,  my  dear  fellow,  has  gone  to 
Paris  on  the  steamer.  '  He  heard  some 
news  of  his  father  this  morning  on  the 
quays,  from  a  sailor.  It  seems  the  father, 
a  Swedish  sailor,  went  to  the  Indies  and 
served  a  prince,  or  something,  and  he  is 
now  in  Paris." 

"Lies  !  it's  all  a  trick  !  infamous  !  I'll 
find  that  devilish  cripple  if  I've  got  to  go 
express  to  Paris  for  him,"  cried  Dumay. 
"Butscha  is  deceiving  us;  he  knows 
something  about  Modeste,  and  has  not 
told  us.  If  he  meddles  in  this  thing  he 
shall  never  be  a  notary.  I  "11  roU  him  in 
the  mud  from  which  he  came,  I'll — " 

"  Come,  come,  my  friend  ;  never  hang 
a  man  before  you  try  him,"  said  Latour- 
nelle,  frightened  at  Dumay's  rage. 

After  having  explained  upon  what  his 
suspicions  were  founded,  Dumay  begged 
Madame  Latournelle  to  go  and  stay  with 
Modeste  at  the  Chalet  during  his  absence. 

"You  will  find  the  colonel  in  Paris," 
said  the  notary.  "In  the  shipping  news 
quoted  this  morning  in  the  '  Journal  of 
Commerce,'  I  found  under  the  head  of 
Marseilles — here,    see    for  yourself,"    he 


added,  offering  the  paper.  "'The  Bet- 
Una  Mignon,  Captain  Mignon,  arrived 
October  6;'  it  is  now  the  17th;  the 
colonel  may  be  in  Havre  at  any  moment." 

Dumay  requested  Gobenheim  to  get 
along  without  him,  and  then  went  back 
to  the  Chalet,  which  he  reached  just  as 
Modeste  was  sealing  her  two  letters,  to 
her  father  and  Canalis.  Except  for  the 
address  the  letters  were  precisely  alike 
both  in  weight  and  appearance.  Modeste 
thought  she  had  laid  that  to  her  father 
over  that  to  her  Melchior,  but  had,  in 
fact,  done  exactly  the  reverse.  This  mis- 
take, so  often  made  in  the  little  things 
of  nfe,  occasioned  the  discovery  of  her 
secret  by  Dumay  and  her  mother.  The 
former  was  talking  vehemently  to  Ma- 
dame Mignon  in  the  salon,  and  revealing 
to  her  his  fresh  fears  caused  hx  Modeste's 
duplicity  and  Butscha's  connivance. 

"  Madame,"  he  cried,  "he  is  a  serpent 
whom  we  have  warmed  in  our  bosoms; 
there's  no  place  in  his  wretched  little  body 
for  soul ! " 

Modeste  put  the  letter  for  her  father 
into  the  pocket  of  her  apron,  supposing' 
it  to  be  that  for  Canalis,  and  came  down^ 
stairs  with  the  letter  for  her  lover  in  her 
hand,  hearing  Dumay  speaking  of  his  im- 
mediate departure  for  Paris. 

"  What  has  happened  to  my  Black 
Dwarf  ?  why  are  you  talking  so  loud  ?  " 
she  said,  appearing  at  the  door. 

"Mademoiselle,  Butscha  has  gone  to 
Paris,  and  you,  no  doubt,  know  why — to 
carry  on  that  affair  of  the  little  architect 
with  the  sulphur  waistcoat,  who,  unfort- 
unatel\'  for  the  hunchback's  lies,  has 
never  been  here." 

Modeste  was  struck  dumb  ;  feeling  sure 
that  the  dwarf  had  departed  on  a  mission 
of  inquiry  as  to  her  poet's  morals,  she 
turned  pale,  and  sat  down. 

"I'm  going  after  him;  I  shall  find 
him,"  continued  Dumay.  "  Is  that  the 
letter  for  your  father,  mademoiselle?" 
he  added,  holding  out  his  hand.  "I  will 
send  it  to  the  Mongenods.  Provided  the 
colonel  and  I  maj'  not  pass  each  other  on 
the  road." 

Modeste  gave  him  the  letter.  Dumay 
looked  mechanically  at  the  address. 


398 


THE    HUMAN    00 MED  Y. 


" '  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Canalis,  Rue 
de  Paradis-Poissonniere,  No.  29 '  !  "  he 
cried  out;  "what  does  that  mean?" 

"  Ah,  my  daughter !  that  is  the  man 
you  love,"  exclaimed  Madame  Mig-non ; 
"the  stanzas  you  set  to  music  were 
his—" 

"  And  tliat's  his  portrait  that  you  have 
in  a  frame  upstairs,"  added  Duinay. 

"  Give  me  back  that  letter.  Monsieur 
Dumaj'-,"  said  Modeste,  rising  like  a  lion- 
ess defending  her  cubs. 

"  There  it  is,  mademoiselle,"  he  replied. 

Modeste  put  it  into  the  bosom  of  her 
dress,  and  gave  Dumay  the  one  intended 
for  her  father. 

"  I  know  what  you  are  capable  of,  Du- 
may," she  said;  "and  if  you  take  one 
step  against  Monsieur  de  Canalis,  I  shall 
take  another  out  of  this  liouse,  to  which  I 
will  never  return." 

"You  will  kill  j'our  mother,  mademoi- 
selle," replied  Dumay,  leaving  the  room 
and  calling  his  wife. 

The  poor  mother  was  indeed  half-faint- 
ing— struck  to  the  heart  by  Modeste 's 
words. 

•  "  Good-by,  wife,"  said  the  Breton, 
kissing  the  American.  "  Take  care  of 
the  mother  ;  I  go  to  save  the  daughter." 

He  left  Modeste  and  Madame  Dumay 
with  Madame  Mignon,  made  his  prepara- 
tions for  the  journey  in  a  few  minutes, 
and  started  for  Havre.  An  hour  later  he 
was  traveling  post  to  Paris,  with  the 
haste  that  nothing  but  passion  or  specu- 
lation can  get  out  of  wheels. 

Recovering  lierself  under  Modeste 's  ten- 
der care,  Madame  Mignon  went  up  to  her 
bedroom  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her  daugh- 
ter, to  whom  she  said,  as  her  sole  re- 
proach, when  thej'  were  alone : 

"  My  unfortunate  child,  see  what  you 
have  done  !  Why  did  you  conceal  any- 
thing from  me  ?     Am  I  so  harsh  ?  " 

"Oh  !  I  was  just  going  to  tell  it  to  j'ou 
myself,"  sobbed  Modeste. 

She  thereupon  related  everything  to  her 
motlier,  read  her  the  letters  and  their  an- 
swers, and  shed  the  rose  of  her  poem 
petal  by  petal  into  the  heart  of  the  kind 
German  woman.  When  this  confidence, 
which  took  half  the  day,  was  over,  when 


she  saw  something  that  was  almost  a 
smile  on  the  lips  of  the  too  indulgent 
mother,  Modeste  fell  upon  her  breast  in 
tears. 

"  Oh,  mother  !"  she  said  amid  her  sobs, 
"  you,  whose  heart,  all  gold  and  poetry, 
is  a  chosen  vessel,  chosen  of  God  to  hold 
a  sacred,  pure  and  celestial  love  that  en- 
dures for  life  ;  you,  whom  I  wish  to  imi- 
tate b^^  loving  no  one  but  my  husband — 
you  will  surely  understand  what  bitter 
tears  I  am  now  shedding.  This  butterfly, 
this  dual  soul  which  I  have  nurtured  witli 
maternal  care,  my  love,  my  sacred  love, 
this  living  mystery  of  mysteries,  is  falling 
into  vulgar  hands,  and  they  will  tear  its 
wings  and  rend  its  veil  under  the  miser- 
able pretext  of  enlightening  me,  of  dis- 
covering whether  genius  is  as  correct  as  a 
banker,  whether  m^'  Melchior  is  capable 
of  saving-  his  money,  or  whether  he  has 
some  entanglement  to  shake  off;  they 
want  to  find  out  if  he  is  guilty  to  bour- 
geois eyes  of  yout/hful  indiscretions — 
which  to  the  sun  of  our  love  are  like  the 
clouds  of  the  dawn.  Oh  !  what  v,-ill  come 
of  it  ?  what  will  they  do  ?  See  !  feel  my 
hand;  it  burns  with  fever.  Ah!  I  shall 
never  survive  it." 

And  Modeste,  really  taken  with  a  cliill, 
was  forced  to  go  to  bed,  causing  serious 
uneasiness  to  her  mother,  Madame  La- 
tournelle,  and  Madame  Dumay,  who  took 
good  care  of  her  during  the  journey  of 
the  lieutenant  to  Paris — to  which  city  the 
logic  of  events  compels  us  to  transport 
our  drama  for  a  moment. 

Truly  modest  minds,  like  those  of  Ernest 
de  la  Briere,  but  especially  those  who, 
knowing  their  own  value,  are  neither 
loved  nor  appreciated,  can  understand 
the  infinite  joy  to  which  the  young  secre- 
tary abandoned  himself  on  reading  Mo- 
deste's  letter.  After  tliinking  him  lofty 
and  witty  in  soul,  his  young,  artless  mis- 
tress now  thought  him  handsome.  This 
is  supreme  flattery.  And  why  ?  Beauty 
is,  undoubtedly,  the  signature  of  the  mas- 
ter to  the  work  into  whicli  he  has  put  his 
soul ;  it  is  the  divine  spirit  manifested. 
And  to  see  it  where  it  is  not,  to  create  it 
by  the  power  of  an  inward  look — is  not 
that    the    highest    attainment   of    love  ? 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


399 


And  so  the  poor  j'outh  cried  aloud  with 
all  the  rapture  of  an  applauded  author, 
"At  last  I  am  beloved!"  When  a  wo- 
man— ^be  she  maid,  wife,  or  widow — lets 
the  charming-  words  escape  her,  "Thou 
art  handsome,"  the  words  may  be  false, 
V)ut"the  man  opens  his  thick  skull  to  their 
subtle  poison,  and  thenceforth  he  is  at- 
tached by  an  everlasting'  tie  to  the  pretty 
flatterer,  the  true  or  the  deceived  wo- 
man ;  she  becomes  his  particular  world, 
he  thirsts  for  her  continual  testimony, 
and  he  never  wearies  of  it,  eVen  if  he  is  a 
crowned  prince.  Ernest  walked  proudly 
up  and  down  his  room ;  he  struck  a  three- 
quarter,  full-face,  and  profile  attitude  be- 
fore the  glass  ;  he  tried  to  criticise  him- 
self ;  but  a  voice,  diabolically  persuasive, 
whispered  to  him,  "Modeste  is  right." 
He  took  up  her  letter  and  re-read  it ;  he 
saw  his  fairest  of  the  fair ;  he  talked  with 
her;  then,  in  the  midst  of  his  ecstasy,  a 
dreadful  thought  came  to  him : 

"  She  thinks  me  Canalis,  and  she  has  a 
million  of  money  !  " 

Down  went  his  happiness,  just  as  a 
somnambulist,  who  has  attained  the  peak 
of  a  roof,  hoars  a  voice,  awakes,  and  falls 
crushed  upon  the  pavement. 

"  Without  the  halo  of  fame  I  shall  be 
hideous  in  her  eyes,"  he  cried  ;  "what  a 
maddening  situation  I  have  got  myself 
into  !  " 

La  Briere  was  too  much  like  his  letters, 
his  heart  was  too  noble  and  pure  to  allow 
him  to  hesitate  at  the  call  of  honor.  He 
at  once  resolved  to  find  Modeste's  father, 
if  he  were  in  Paris,  and  confess  all  to 
him,  and  to  let  Canalis  know  the  serious 
results  of  their  Parisian  jest.  To  a  sen- 
sitive nature  like  his,  Modeste's  large 
fortune  was  in  itself  a  determining  rea- 
son. He  could  not  allow  it  to  be  even 
suspected  that  the  ardor  of  the  corre- 
spondence, so  sincere  on  his  part,  had  in 
view  the  capture  of  a  dot.  Tears  were 
in  his  eyes  as  he  made  his  waj"-  to  the 
Rue  Chantereinc  to  find  the  banker  Mon- 
genod,  whose  fortune  and  business  con- 
nections were  partly  the  work  of  the 
minister  to  whom  Ernest  owed  his  start 
in  life. 

While   La  Briere  was  inquiring  about 


the  father  of  his  beloved  from  the  head' 
of  the  house  of  Mongenod,  and  getting 
information  that  might  be  useful  to  hira 
in  his  strange  position,  a  scene  was  tak- 
ing place  in  Canalis's  study  which  the 
ex  -  lieutenant's  hasty  departure  from 
Havre  may  have  led  the  reader  to  fore- 
see. 

Like  a  true  soldier  of  the  imperial 
school,  Dumay,  whose  Breton  blood  had 
boiled  all  the  way  to  Paris,  thought  of 
a  poet  as  a  poor  stick  of  a  fellow,  of  no 
consequence  whatever  —  a  writer  of  gay 
refrains,  living  in  a  garret,  dressed  in 
black  clothes  that  were  white  at  every 
seam,  wearing  boots  that  were  occasion- 
ally without  soles,  and  linen  that  wa* 
unmentionable,  and  whose  fingers  know 
more  about  ink  than  soap ;  in  short,  one 
who  looked  alwaj-s  as  if  he  had  stumbled 
from  the  moon,  except  when  scribbling 
at  a  desk,  like  Butscha.  But  the  seeth- 
ing of  the  Breton's  heart  and  brain  re- 
ceived a  violent  application  of  cold  water 
when  he  entered  the  courtj'ard  of  the 
pretty  house  occupied  by  the  poet  and 
saw  a  groom  washing  a  carriage,  and 
also,  through  the  windows  of  a  hand- 
some dining-room,  a  valet  dressed  like 
a  banker,  to  whom  the  groom  referred 
him,  and  who  answered,  looking  the 
stranger  over  from  head  to  foot,  that 
Monsieur  le  Baron  was  not  visible. 
"There  is,"  added  the  man,  "a  meet- 
ing of  the  council  of  state  to-day,  at 
which  Monsieur  le  Baron  is  obliged  to 
be  present." 

"  Is  this  really  the  house  of  Monsieur 
Canalis,"  said  Dumay,  "a  writer  of 
poetry  ?  " 

"Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Canalis,"  re- 
plied the  valet,  "is  the  great  poet  of 
whom  you  speak ;  but  he  is  also  the 
president  of  the  coui't  of  Claims  at- 
tached to  the  ministry  of  foreign  af- 
fairs." 

Dumaj',  who  had  come  to  box  the  ears 
of  a  scribbling  nobody,  found  himself 
confronted  by  a  high  functionary  of  the 
state.  The  salon  where  he  was  told  to 
wait  offered,  for  his  meditations,  the  in- 
signia of  the  Legion  of  Honor  glittering 
on  a  black  coat,  belonging  to  Canalis, 


400 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


which  the  valet  had  left  upon  a  chair. 
Presently  his  eyes  were  attracted  by 
the  beauty  and  brilliancy  of  a  silver- 
g-ilt  cup  bearing  the  words  "  Given  by 
Madame."  Then  he  beheld  before  him, 
on  a  pedestal,  a  Sevres  vase  on  which 
was  enj»-raved,  "  The  gift  of  Madame  la 
Dauphine." 

These  mute  admonitions  brought  Du- 
may  to  his  senses  while  the  valet  went 
to  ask  his  master  if  he  would  receive  a 
person  who  had  come  from  Havre  ex- 
pressly to  see  him  —  a  stranger  named 
Dumay. 

"  What  sort  of  a  man  ?  "  asked  Canalis. 

"  He  is  well-dressed,  and  wears  the 
ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  Honor." 

Canalis  made  a  sign  of  assent,  and 
the  valet  retreated,  and  then  returned 
and  announced,   ''Monsieur  Dumay." 

When  he  heard  himself  announced,  when 
he  was  actuallj'  in  presence  of  Canalis,  in 
a  study  as  gorgeous  as  it  was  elegant, 
with  his  feet  on  a  carpet  far  handsomer 
than  any  in  the  house  of  Mignon,  and 
when  he  met  the  studied  glance  of  the 
poet  who  was  playing  with  the  tassels  of 
his  sumptuous  dressing-gown,  Dumay  was 
so  completel}^  taken  aback  that  he  allowed 
the  great  poet  to  have  the  first  word. 

"  To  what  do  I  owe  the  honor  of  your 
visit,  monsieur  ?  " 

"Monsieur,"  began  Dumay,  who  re- 
mained standing. 

"If  you  have  a  good  deal  to  say,"  in- 
terrupted Canalis,  "  I  must  ask  you  to  be 
seated." 

And  Canalis  threw  himself  into  an  arm- 
chair a  la  Voltaire,  crossed  his  legs,  raised 
the  upper  one  to  the  level  of  his  ej'e  and 
looked  fixedly  at  Dumay,  who  became,  to 
use  his  own  martial  slang,  "bayoneted." 

"I  am  listening,  monsieur,"  said  the 
poet ;  "  vay  time  is  precious — the  minister 
expects  me." 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Dumaj^,  "  I  shall  be 
brief.  You  have  gained  an  influence — 
how,  I  do  not  know — over  a  young  lady 
in  Havre,  who  is  beautiful  and  rich  ;  the 
only  hope  of  two  noble  families ;  and  I 
have  come  to  ask  your  intentions." 

Canalis,  who  had  been  busy  during  the 
last  three  months  with  serious  matters  of 


his  own,  and  was  trying  to  get  himself 
made  commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor 
and  minister  to  a  German  court,  had  com- 
pletely forgotten  Modeste's  letter. 

"  I ! "  he  exclaimed. 

"You  !  "  repeated  Dumay. 

"Monsieur,"  answered  Canalis,  smil- 
ing-; "I  know  no  more  of  what  you  are 
talking  about  than  if  you  had  said  it  in 
Hebrew.  I  lead  a  young  girl  astray  !  I, 
who — "  and  a  superb  smile  crossed  his 
features.  "  Come,  come,  monsieur,  I'm 
not  such  a  child  as  to  steal  fruit  over  the 
hedges  when  I  have  orchards  and  gardens 
of  my  own  where  the  finest  peaches  in 
the  world  ripen.  All  Paris  knows  where 
my  affections  are  set.  Even  if  there  should 
be  some  young  girl  in  Havre  full  of  en- 
thusiasm for  m\'  verses — of  which  the^'  are 
not  worth}^ ;  that  would  not  surprise  me 
at  all ;  nothing  is  more  common.  See  ! 
look  at  that  lovely  cofl'er  of  ebony  inlaid 
with  mother-of-pearl,  and  edged  with  that 
iron-work  as  fine  as  lace.  That  cofl"er  be- 
longed to  Pope  Leo  X.,  and  was  given  to 
rae  by  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  who  re- 
ceived it  from  the  king  of  Spain.  It  con- 
tains the  letters  I  receive  from  ladies  and 
young  girls  living  in  every  quarter  of 
Europe.  Oh !  I  assure  you  I  feel  the 
utmost  respect  for  these  flowers  of  the 
soul,  cut  and  sent  in  moments  of  enthu- 
siasm that  are  worthy  of  all  reverence. 
Yes,  to  me  the  impulse  of  a  heart  is  a 
noble  and  sublime  thing!  Others  — 
scofTers  —  light  their  cigars  with  such 
letters,  or  give  them  to  their  wives  for 
curl-papers ;  but  I,  who  am  a  bachelor, 
monsieur,  I  have  too  much  delicacy  not 
to  preserve  these  artless  offerings  —  so 
fresh,  so  disinterested — in  a  tabernacle  of 
their  own.  In  fact,  I  guard  them  with  a 
species  of  veneration,  and  when  I  am  on 
my  death-bed  they  will  be  burned  before 
my  eyes.  People  may  call  that  ridiculous, 
but  I  do  not  care.  I  am  grateful ;  these 
proofs  of  devotion  enable  me  to  bear  the 
criticisms  and  aniioyances  of  a  literary 
life.  When  I  receive  a  shot  in  the  back 
from  some  enemy  lurking  under  cover 
of  a  daily  paper,  1  look  at  that  casket 
and  think — here  and  there  in  this  wide 
world  there  are  hearts  whose  pain  has 


MOD  EST E    MIGXON. 


401 


been  healed,  or  diverted,  or  soothed  by 
n:e ! " 

This  bit  of  poetry,  declaimed  with  all 
the  talent  of  a  great  actor,  petrified  the 
lieutenant,  whose  eyes  opened  to  their 
utmost  extent,  and  whose  astonishment 
amused  the  poet. 

"  I  will  permit  you,"  continued  the  pea- 
cock, spreading  his  tail,  "out  of  respect 
for  your  position,  which  I  fully  appreciate, 
to  open  that  coffer  and  look  for  the  letter 
of  your  young  lady.  I  know  I  am  right, 
however;  I  remember  names,  and  I  as- 
sure you  you  are  mistaken  in  thinking — " 

"And  this  is  what  a  poor  child  comes 
to  in  this  gulf  of  Paris  !  "  cried  Dumay— 
"the  darling  of  her  parents,  the  joj^  of 
her  friends,  the  hope  of  all,  petted  by  all, 
the  pride  of  a  family,  who  has  six  persons 
so  devoted  to  her  that  they  are  making  a 
rampart  of  their  hearts  and  fortunes  be- 
tween her  and  sorrow.  Monsieur,"  Du- 
may resumed  after  a  pause,  "you  are  a 
gi'eat  poet,  and  I  am  onh^  a  poor  soldier. 
For  fifteen  years  I  served  my  country  in 
the  ranks  ;  I  have  had  the  wind  of  many 
a  bullet  in  my  face  ;  I  have  crossed  Siberia 
and  been  a  prisoner  there  ;  the  Russians 
flung  me  on  a  kibitka,  and  God  knows 
what  I  suffered.  I  have  seen  thousands 
of  my  comrades  die — but  you  have  given 
me  a  chill  to  the  marrow  of  my  bones, 
such  as  I  never  felt  before." 

Duinay  fancied  that  his  words  moved 
the  poet,  but  in  fact  they  only  flattered 
him — a  thing  which  at  this  period  of  his 
life  had  become  almost  an  impossibility  ; 
for  his  ambitious  mind  had  long  forgotten 
the  first  perfumed  phial  that  praise  had 
broken  over  his  head. 

"Ah,  my  soldier  !  "  he  said  solemnly, 
laying  his  hand  on  Dumay 's  shoulder,  and 
thinking  to  hims*5lf  how  droll  it  was  to 
make  a  soldier  of  the  empire  tremble, 
"  this  young  girl  may  be  all  in  all  to  you, 
but  to  societj'^  at  large  what  is  she  ?  noth- 
ing. At  this  moment  the  greatest  man- 
darin in  China  may  be  yielding  up  the 
ghost  and  putting  half  the  universe  in 
mourning,  and  what  is  that  to  you?  The 
English  are  killing  thousands  of  people  in 
India  more  worthy  than  we  are  ;  why,  at 
this  very  moment  while  I  am  speaking  to 


you  some  ravishing  woman  is  being  burned 
alive  —  did  that  make  you  care  less  for 
your  cup  of  coffee  this  morning  ?  Not  a 
daj'  passes  in  Paris  that  some  mother  in 
rags  does  not  cast  her  infant  on  the  world 
to  be  picked  up  by  whoever  finds  it ;  and 
yet  see  !  here  is  this  delicious  tea  in  a  cup 
that  cost  five  louis,  and  I  write  verses 
which  Parisian  women  rush  to  buy,  ex- 
claiming, '  Divine  !  delicious  !  charming  ! 
food  for  the  soul !  '  Social  nature,  like 
Nature  herself,  is  full  of  forgetfulness. 
You  will  be  quite  surprised  ten  years 
hence  at  what  you  have  done  to-daj-. 
You  are  here  in  a  city  where  people  die, 
where  they  marry,  where  they  adore  each 
other  at  an  assignation,  where  young  girls 
commit  suicide,  where  the  man  of  genius 
with  his  cargo  of  thoughts  teeming  with 
humane  beneficence  goes  to  the  bottom — 
all  side  by  side,  sometimes  under  th»  same 
roof,  and  yet  ignorant  of  each  other.  And 
here  you  come  among  us  and  ask  us  to 
expire  with  grief  at  this  commonplace 
affair." 

"  You  call  yourself  a  poet !  "  cried  Du- 
may. "'  Do  you  not  feel  what  j^ou  write  ?  " 

"  My  good  sir,  if  we  endured  the  joj's  or 
the  woes  we  sing  we  should  be  as  wornout 
in  three  months  as  a  pair  of  old  boots," 
said  the  poet,  smiling.  "  But  stay,  j^ou 
shall  not  come  from  Havre  to  Paris  to  see 
Canalis  without  carrying  something  back 
with  you.  Warrior !  [Canalis  had  the 
form  and  action  of  an  Homeric  hero] 
learn  this  from  the  poet :  Every  noble 
sentiment  in  man  is  a  poem  so  exclusively 
individual  that  his  best  friend  cares  noth- 
ing for  it.  It  is  a  treasure  which  is  his 
alone,  it  is — " 

"  Excuse  me  for  interrupting  you, "  said 
Dumay,  who  was  gazing  at  the  poet  with 
horror,  "but  did  you  ever  come  to 
Havre  ?  " 

"  I  was  there  for  a  day  and  a  night  in 
the  spring  of  1824  on  my  way  to  Lon- 
don." 

"You  are  a  man  of  honor,"  continued 
Dumay;  "will  you  give  me  your  word 
that  you  do  not  know  Mademoiselle  Mo- 
deste  Mignon  ?  " 

"  This  is  the  first  time  that  naiae  ever 
struck  my  ear,"  replied  Canalis. 


402 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Ah,  monsieur  !  "  said  Dumay,  "  into 
what  dark  intrig-uc  am  I  about  to  plunge  ? 
Can  I  count  upon  you  to  help  me  in  my 
inquiries? — for  I  am  certain  that  some 
one  has  been  using-  your  name.  You 
should  have  received  a  letter  yesterday 
from  Havre." 

"  I  received  none.  Be  sure,  monsieur, 
that  I  will  help  you,"  said  Canalis,  "so 
far  as  I  have  the  opportunity  of  doing- 
so." 

Dumay  withdrew,  his  heart  torn  with 
anxiety,  believing  that  the  wretched  But- 
sclia  had  worn  the  skin  of  the  poet  to  de- 
ceive Modeste  ;  whereas  Butscha  himself, 
keen-witted  as  a  prince  seeking-  revenge, 
and  far  clevei-er  than  any  paid  spy,  was 
ferreting  out  the  life  and  actions  of  Cana- 
lis, escaping  notice  bj'  his  insignificance, 
like  an  insect  that  bores  its  way  into  the 
sap  of  a  tree. 

The  Breton  had  scarcely  left  the  poet's 
house  when  La  Briere  entered  his  friend's 
study.  Naturally,  Canalis  told  him  of 
the  visit  of  the  man  from  Havre. 

"Ha!"  said  Ernest,  "Modeste  Mi- 
gnon ;  that  is  just  what  I  have  come  to 
speak  of." 

,  "All,  bah!"  cried  Canalis;    "have  I 
had  a  triumph  by  proxy?" 

"Yes  ;  and  here  is  the  kej'  to  it.  My 
friend,  I  am  loved  by  the  sweetest  girl  in 
all  the  world — beautiful  enough  to  shine 
beside  the  greatest  beauties  in  Paris,  with 
a  heart  and  mind  worthy  of  a  Clarissa 
Harlowe.  She  has  seen  me ;  I  have 
pleased  her,  and  she  thinks  me  the  great 
Canalis.  But  that  is  not  all.  Modeste 
Mignon  is  of  high  birth,  and  Mongenod 
has  just  told  me  that  her  father,  the 
Comte  de  la  Bastie,  has  something  like 
six  millions.  The  father  has  been  here 
three  days,  and  I  have  asked  him  through 
Mongenod  for  an  interview  at  two  o'clock. 
Mongenod  is  to  give  him  a  hint,  just  a 
word,  that  it  concerns  the  happiness  of 
his  daughter.  But  you  will  readily  under- 
stand that  before  seeing  the  father  I  feel 
I  ought  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  to 
you." 

"Among  the  plants  whose  flowers  bloom 
in  the  sunshine  of  fame,  "said  Canalis,  im- 
pressively, "there  is  one,  the  most  mag- 


nificent, which  bears  like  the  orange-tree 
a  golden  fruit  amid  the  mingled  perfumes 
of  beautjr  and  of  mind ;  a  lovely  plant,  a 
true  tenderness,  a  perfect  bliss,  and — it 
eludes  me."  Canalis  looked  at  the  car- 
pet that  Ernest  might  not  read  his  eyes. 
"Could  I,"  he  continued  after  a  pause  to 
regain  his  self-possession,  "how  could  I 
have  divined  that  flower  from  a  pretty 
sheet  of  perfumed  paper,  that  true  heart, 
that  young  girl,  that  woman  in  whom 
love  wears  the  livery  of  flattery,  who 
loves  us  for  ourselves,  who  offers  us  fe- 
licity? It  needed  an  angel  or  a  demon  to 
perceive  her ;  and  what  am  I  but  the  am- 
bitious head  of  a  court  of  Claims  !  Ah, 
vay  friend,  fame  makes  us  the  target  of 
a  thousand  arrows.  One  of  us  owes  his 
rich  marriage  to  an  hj'draulic  piece  of 
poetry,  while  I,  more  seductive,  more  a 
woman's  man  than  lie,  have  missed  mine 
— do  you  love  her,  this  poor  girl?"  he 
asked,  looking  up  at  La  Briere. 

"  Oh  !  "  ejaculated  the  young  man. 

"Well,  then,"  said  the  poet,  taking  his 
secretary's  arm  and  leaning  heavily  upon 
it,  "be  happy,  Ernest.  By  a  mere  acci- 
dent I  have  been  not  ungrateful  to  you. 
You  are  richly  rewarded  for  your  devo- 
tion, for  I  will  generously  further  your 
happiness." 

Canalis  was  furious ;  but  he  could  not 
behave  otherwise,  and  he  made  the  best 
of  his  disappointment  by  making  a  pedes- 
tal of  it. 

"Ah,  Canalis,  I  have  never  really  known 
you  till  this  moment." 

"  What  did  you  expect  ?  It  takes  some 
time  togo  round  the  world,"  replied  the 
poet  with  his  pompous  irony. 

"But  think,"  said  La  Briere,  "of  this 
enormous  fortune." 

"Ah,  my  friend,  is  if  not  well  invested 
in  you?"  cried  Canalis,  accompanj'ing 
the  words  with  a  charming  gesture. 

"Melchior,"  said  La  Briere,  "I  am 
yours  for  life  and  death." 

He  wrung  the  poet's  hand  and  left  him 
abruptly,  for  he  was  in  haste  to  meet 
Monsieur  Mignon. 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


403 


XV. 

The  Comte  de  la  Bastie  was  over- 
whelmed with  the  sorrows  which  lay  in 
wait  for  him  as  their  prey.  He  had 
learned  from  his  daughter's  letter  of 
Bettina's  death  and  of  his  wife's  in- 
firmity, and  Dumay  related  to  him,  when 
they  met,  his  terrible  perplexity'  as  to 
Modeste's  love  affairs. 

"  Leave  me  to  myself,"  he  said  to  his 
faithful  friend. 

As  the  lieutenant  closed  the  door,  the 
unhappy  father  threw  himself  on  a  sofa, 
with  his  head  in  his  hands,  weeping:  those 
slow,  scanty  tears  which  gather  between 
the  eyelids  of  a  man  of  sixty,  but  do  not 
fall — tears  soon  dried,  yet  quick  to  start 
again — the  last  dews  of  the  human  au- 
tumn. 

"  To  have  dear  children  and  an  adored 
wife — what  is  it  but  to  have  many  hearts 
and  bare  them  to  a  dagger  ?  "  he  cried, 
springing  up  with  the  bound  of  a  tiger 
and  walking  up  and  down  the  room.  "  To 
be  a  father  is  to  give  one's  self  over, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  to  sorrow.  If  I 
meet  that  D"Estourny  I  will  kill  him. 
To  have  daughters  I — one  gives  her  life 
to  a  scoundrel,  the  other,  my  Modeste, 
falls  a  victim  to  whom  ?  a  coward,  who 
deceives  her  with  the  gilded  paper  of  a 
poet.  If  it  were  Canalis  himself  it  might 
not  be  so  bad  :  but  that  Scapin  of  a  lover! 
— I  will  strangle  him  with  my  two  hands," 
he  cried,  making  an  involuntary  gesture 
of  furious  determination.  "And  what 
then  ?  suppose  my  Modeste  were  to  die 
of  grief  ? " 

He  gazed  mechanically  out  of  the  win- 
dows of  the  Hotel  des  Princes,  and  then 
returned  to  the  sofa,  where  he  sat  mo- 
tionless. The  fatigues  of  six  voyages  to 
India,  the  anxieties  of  speculation,  the 
dangers  he  had  encountered  and  evaded, 
and  his  many  griefs,  had  silvered  Charles 
Mignon's  head.  His  handsome  soldierly 
face,  so  pure  in  out  line,  was  now  bronzed  by 
the  suns  of  China  and  the  southern  seas, 
and  had  acquired  an  air  of  dignity  which 
his  present  grief  rendered  almost  sublime. 

"  Mongenod  told  me  to  have  confidence 
in  the  young  man  who  is  coming  to  ask 


me  for  my  daughter,"  he  thought  at  last; 
and  at  this  moment  Ernest  de  la  Briere 
was  announced  bj'  one  of  the  servants 
whom  Monsieur  de  la  Bastie  had  attached 
to  himself  during  the  last  four  years. 

"  You  have  come,  monsieur,  from  my 
friend  Mongenod  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Ernest,  looking  timidly 
at  the  face  before  him,  v'hich  was  as 
somber  as  Othello's.  "  M3'  name  is 
Ernest  de  la  Briere,  related  to  the  fami- 
ly of  the  late  cabinet  minister,  and  his 
private  secretary  during  his  term  of  of- 
fice. When  he  went  out  of  office,  his 
excellenc\-  put  me  in  the  court  of 
Claims,  to  which  I  am  legal  counsel, 
and  where  I  maj'  possibty  succeed  as 
chief—" 

"  And  how  does  all  this  concern  Made- 
moiselle de  la  Bastie  ?  "  asked  the  count. 

"  Monsieur,  I  love  her  ;  and  I  have  the 
unspeakable  happiness  of  being  loved  by 
her.  Hear  me,  monsieur,"  cried  Ernest, 
checking  a  violent  movement  on  the  part 
of  the  angry  father.  "  I  have  the  strang- 
est confession  to  make  to  you,  a  shameful 
one  for  a  man  of  honor;  but  the  worst 
punishment  of  mj'  conduct,  natural  enough 
in  itself,  is  not  the  telling  of  it  to  you  ;  no, 
I  fear  the  daughter  even  more  than  the 
father." 

Ernest  then  related  simply,  and  with 
the  nobleness  that  comes  of  sincerity,  all 
the  facts  of  his  little  drama,  not  omitting 
the  twenty  or  more  letters,  which  he  had 
brought  with  him,  nor  the  interview 
which  he  had  just  had  with  Canalis. 
When  Monsieur  Mignon  had  finished 
reading  the  letters,  the  unfortunate  lover, 
pale  and  suppliant,  trembled  beneath  the 
flery  glance  of  the  Provengal. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  latter,  "in  this 
whole  matter  there  is  but  one  error,  but 
that  is  all-important.  My  daughter  will 
not  have  six  millions;  at  the  utmost,  she 
will  have  a  marriage  portion  of  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  and  very  doubtful 
expectations." 

"  Ah,  monsieur  !  "  cried  Erne-st,  rising 
and  grasping  Monsieur  Mignon 's  hand  ; 
"you  take  a  load  from  my  breast.  Per- 
haps nothing  will  now  hinder  my  happi- 
ness.    I  have  influence ;  I  shall  certainly 


404 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


be  chief  of  the  court  of  Claims.  Had 
Mademoiselle  Modeste  no  more  than  ten 
tliousand  francs,  if  I  had  even  to  make  a 
settlement  on  her,  she  should  still  be  my 
wife  ;  and  to  make  her  happj'  as  j'ou, 
monsieur,  have  made  your  wife  happy,  to 
be  to  you  a  real  son  (for  I  have  no  father), 
are  the  deepest  desires  of  my  heart." 

Charles  Mig-non  stepped  back  and  fixed 
upon  La  Briere  a  look  which  entered  the 
ej'es  of  the  young'  man  as  a  dag-g-er  enters 
its  sheath ;  he  stood  silent  a  moment, 
recog-nizing  the  absolute  candor,  tlie  pure 
truthfulness  of  that  open  nature  in  the 
light  of  the  young  man's  inspired  eyes. 
"  Is  fate  at  last  weary  of  pursuing'  me  ?" 
he  asked  himself.  "Am  I  to  find  in  this 
young'  man  the  pearl  of  sons-in-law?" 
He  walked  up  and  down  the  room  in 
strong'  ag-itation. 

"Monsieur,"  he  said  at  last,  "you  are 
bound  to  submit  wholly  to  the  jud.g'ment 
which  you  have  come  here  to  seek,  other- 
wise you  are  now  playing  a  farce." 

"Oh,  monsieur  ! " 

"Listen  to  me,"  said  the  father,  nail- 
ing La  Briere  where  he  stood  with  a 
g'lance.  "  I  shall  be  neither  harsh,  nor 
hard,  nor  unjust.  You  shall  have  the 
advantag-es  and  the  disadvantages  of  the 
false  position  in  which  you  have  placed 
yourself.  My  daughter  believes  that  she 
loves  one  of  the  great  poets  of  the  day, 
whose  fame  attracted  her  in  the  first 
place.  Well,  I,  her  father,  intend  to  give 
her  the  opportunity  to  choose  between 
the  celebrity  which  has  been  a  beacon  to 
her,  and  the  poor  reality  which  the  irony 
of  fate  has  flung  at  her  feet.  Ought  she 
not  to  choose  between  Canalis  and  your- 
self ?  I  rely  upon  your  honor  not  to  re- 
peat what  I  have  told  you  as  to  the  state 
of  my  affairs.  You  may  come,  you  and 
your  friend  the  Baron  de  Canalis,  to 
H-avre  for  the  last  two  weeks  of  October. 
My  house  will  be  open  to  both  of  you, 
and  my  daughter  shall  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  study  you.  You  must  yourself 
bring  your  rival,  and  not  disabuse  him  as 
to  the  foolish  tales  he  will  hear  about  the 
wealth  of  the  Corate  de  la  Bastie.  I  go 
to  Havre  to-morrow,  and  I  shall  expect 
you  three  days  later.    Adieu,  monsieur." 


Poor  La  Briere  went  back  to  Canalis 
with  a  dragging  step.  The  poet,  mean- 
time, left  to  himself,  had  given  way  to  a 
current  of  thought  out  of  which  had  come 
that  secondary  impulse  so  highly  praised 
by  Monsieur  de  Talleyrand.  The  first 
impulse  is  the  voice  of  Nature,  the  second 
that  of  society. 

"A  girl  worth  six  millions,"  he  thought 
to  himself,  "and  my  eyes  were  not  able 
to  see  that  gold  shining  in  the  darkness  ! 
With  such  a  fortune  I  could  be  peer  of 
France,  count,  embassador.  I  have  re- 
plied to  middle-class  women  and  silly 
women,  and  crafty  creatures  who  wanted 
autographs ;  and  I  grew  weary  of  anon}-- 
mous  intrigues  —  at  the  very  moment 
when  God  was  sending  me  a  soul  of  price, 
an  angel  with  golden  wings  !  Bah  !  I'll 
write  a  sublime  poem,  and  perhaps  the 
chance  will  come  again.  Heavens  !  the 
luck  of  that  little  La  Briere — strutting 
about  in  my  luster — plagiarism.  I  am 
the  model,  and  he  the  statue  !  It  is  the 
old  fable  of  Bertrand  and  Raton.  Six 
millions,  a  beauty,  a  Migiion  de  la  Bastie, 
an  aristocratic  divinity  loving  poetry  and 
the  poet !  And  I,  who  showed  my  muscle 
as  man  of  the  world,  who  did  those  Al- 
cide  exercises  to  silence  by  moral  force 
the  champion  of  physical  force,  that  old 
soldier  with  a  heart,  that  friend  of  this 
very  young  girl,  whom  he'll  now  go  and 
tell  that  I  have  a  heart  of  iron  ! — I,  to 
play  Napoleon  when  I  ought  to  have  been 
seraphic  !  Good  heavens  !  True,  I  shall 
have  my  friend.  Friendship  is  a  beautiful 
thing.  I  have  kept  him,  but  at  what  a 
price  !  Six  millions,  that's' the  cost  of  it ; 
we  can't  have  many  friends  if  we  pay  all 
that  for  them." 

La  Briere  entered  the  room  as  Canalis 
reached  this  point  in  his  meditations.  He 
was  gloom  personified. 

"Well,  what's  the  mutter?"  said  Ca- 
nalis. 

"  The  father  exacts  that  his  daughter 
shall  choose  between  the  two  Canalis — " 

"  Poor  boj' !  "  cried  the  poet,  laughing, 
"  he's  a  clever  fellow,  that  father." 

"  I  have  pledged  my  honor  that  I  will 
take  you  to  Havre,"  said  La  Briere, 
piteously. 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


405 


"My  dear  fellow,"  said  Canalis,  "if  it 
is  a  question  of  your  honor,  you  may 
count  on  me.  I'll  ask  for  leave  of 
absence  for  a  month." 

"  Modeste  is  so  beautiful !  "  exclaimed 
La  Briere,  in  a  despairing'  tone,  "  and  you 
can  so  easily  crusli  me.  I  wondered  all 
along'  that  fate  should  be  so  kind  to  me  ; 
I  knew  it  was  all  a  mistake." 

"  Bah  !  we  will  see  about  that,"  said 
Canalis,  with  inhuman  gayety. 

That  evening,  after  dinner,  Charles 
Mignon  and  Dumaj',  were  flying,  by 
\'irtue  of  three  francs  to  each  postilion, 
from  Paris  to  Havre.  The  father  had 
eased  the  watch-dog's  mind  as  to  Mo- 
deste and  her  love  affairs  ;  the  g-uard 
was  relieved,  and  Butscha's  innocence 
established. 

"  It  is  all  for  the  best,  my  old  Dumaj'," 
said  the  count,  who  had  been  making 
certain  inquiries  of  Mongenod  respecting 
Canalis  and  La  Briere.  "We  are  going 
to  have  two  actors  for  one  part !  "  he 
cried  gayly. 

Nevertheless,  he  requested  his  old  com- 
rade to  be  absolutely  silent  about  the 
comedj'  which  was  now  to  be  pla^'ed  at 
the  Chalet — a  comedy  it  might  be,  but 
also  a  g'entle  punishment,  or  rather  a 
lesson  given  'by  the  father  to  the  daugh- 
ter. 

The  two  friends  kept  up  a  long  conver- 
sation all  the  way  from  Paris  to  Havre, 
which  put  the  colonel  in  possession  of  the 
facts  relating  to  his  family  during'  the 
past  four  years,  and  informed  Dumay 
that  Desplein,  the  great  surgeon,  was 
coming  to  Ha\Te  at  the  end  of  the  pres- 
ent month  to  examine  the  cataract  on 
Madame  Mignon's  eyes,  and  decide  if  it 
were  possible  to  restore  her  sight. 

A  few  moments  before  the  breakfast- 
hour  at  the  Chalet,  the  clacking  of  a  pos- 
tilion's whip  apprised  the  family  that  the 
two  soldiers  were  arriving ;  only  a  father's 
joy  at  returning  after  long  absence  could 
be  heralded  with  such  clatter,  and  it 
brought  all  the  women  to  the  garden 
gate.  There  are  so  manj"^  fathers  and 
children — perhaps  more  fathers  than  chil- 
dren— who  will  understand  the  delights  of 
such  an  arrival,  that  literature  has  no  need 


to  depict  it.  Perhaps  all  gentle  and  ten- 
der emotions  are  beyond  the  range  of 
literature. 

Not  a  word  that  could  trouble  the  peace 
of  the  family  was  uttered  on  this  joj-ful 
day.  Truce  was  tacitly  established  be- 
tween father,  mother,  and  child  as  to  the 
so-called  mj-sterious  love  which  had  paled 
Modeste's  cheeks — for  this  was  the  first 
day  she  liad  left  her  bed  since  Dumay's 
departure  for  Paris.  The  colonel,  with 
the  charming  delicacy  of  a  true  soldier, 
never  left  his  wife's  side  nor  released  her 
hand ;  but  he  watched  Modeste  with  de- 
light, and  was  never  weary  of  noting  her 
refined,  elegant,  and  poetic  beauty.  It  is 
'by  such  seeming  trifles  that  we  recognize 
a  man  of  feeling.  Modeste,  who  feared  to 
interrupt  the  subdued  joy  of  the  husband 
and  wife,  kept  at  a  little  distance,  coming 
from  time  to  time  to  kiss  her  father's 
forehead,  and  when  she  kissed  it  over- 
much she  seemed  to  mean  that  she  was 
kissing  it  for  two — for  Bettina  and  her- 
self. 

"  Oh,  my  darling,  I  understand  you,' ' 
said  the  colonel,  pressing  her  hand  as 
she  assailed  him  with  kisses. 

"Hush!"  whispered  the  young  girl, 
glancing  at  her  mother. 

Dumay's  rather  sly  and  pregnant  si- 
lence made  Modeste  somewhat  uneasy  as 
to  the  results  of  his  journey  to  Paris. 
She  looked  at  him  furtively  every  now 
and  then,  without  being  able  to  get  be- 
neath his  stolid  imperturbability.  The 
colonel,  like  a  prudent  father,  wanted  to 
study  the  character  of  his  only  daughter, 
and  above  all  consult  his  wife,  before  en-, 
tering  on  a  conference  upon  which  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  famil3'  depended. 

"  To-morrow,  my  precious  child,"  he 
said,  as  they  parted  for  the  night,  "get 
up  early,  and  we  will  go  and  take  a  walk 
on  the  seashore.  We  have  to  talk  about 
your  poems,  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie." 

His  last  words,  accompanied  by  a  smile, 
which  reappeared  like  reflection  on  Du- 
may's lips,  were  all  that  gave  Modeste 
any  clew  to  what  was  coming  ;  but  it  was 
enough  to  calm  her  uneasiness  and  keep 
her  awake  far  into  the  night  with  her 
head  full  of  suppositions ;  the  next  mom- 


406 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


ingr,  therefore,  she  was  dressed  and  ready 
Ions'  before  the  colonel. 

'•  You  know  all,  my  kind  papa?"  she 
said  as  soon  as  they  were  on  the  road  to 
the  beach. 

"I  know  all,  and  a  good  deal  more 
than  you  do,"  he  replied. 

After  that  remark  father  and  daughter 
went  some  little  way  in  silence. 

"  Explain  to  me,  my  child,  how  it  hap- 
pens that  a  girl  whom  her  mother  idolizes 
could  have  taken  such  an  important  step 
as  to  write  to  a  stranger  without  consult- 
ing lier." 

'•  Oh,  papa !  because  mamma  would 
never  have  allowed  it." 

"  And  do  you  think,  my  daughter,  that 
that  was  proper  ?  Though  3'ou  have  been 
educating  your  mind  in  this  fatal  way, 
how  is  it  that  your  good  sense  and  your 
intellect  did  not,  in  default  of  modesty, 
step  in  and  show  you  that  by  acting  as 
you  did,  you  were  throwing  yourself  at 
a  man's  head  ?  To  think  that  my  daugh- 
ter, my  only  remaining  child,  should  lack 
pride  and  delicacy !  Oh,  Modeste,  you 
made  your  father  pass  two  hours  in  hell 
when  ho  heard  of  it ;  for,  after  all,  your 
conduct  has  been  the  same  morallj'  as 
Bettina's  without  the  excuse  of  the  heart's 
seduction;  you  were  a  coquette  in  cold 
blood,  and  that  sort  of  coquetry'  is  head- 
love,  the  worst  vice  of  French  women." 

"I,  without  pride!"  said  Modeste, 
weeping ;  ' '  but  he  has  not  yet  seen  me." 

"He  knows  j'our  name." 

"I  did  not  tell  it  to  him  till  my  eyes 
had  vindicated  the  correspondence,  last- 
•ing  three  months,  during  which  our  souls 
had  spoken  to  each  other." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  misguided  angel,  you 
have  mixed  up  a  species  of  reason  with  a 
folly  that  has  compromised  your  own 
happiness  and  that  of  your  family." 

"  But,  after  all,  papa,  happiness  is  the 
absolution  of  my  temerity,"  she  said, 
pouting. 

"  Oh !  your  conduct  is  nothing  but 
temerity,  is  it?  " 

'•  A  temerity  that  my  mother  practiced 
before  me,"  she  retorted,  quickly. 

"  Rebellious  child  !  your  mother,  after 
seeing  me  at  a  ball,  told  her  father,  who 


adored  her,  that  she  thought  she  could  be 
happy  with  me.  Be  honest,  Modeste  ;  is 
there  any  likeness  between  a  love  hastily 
conceived,  I  admit,  but  under  the  eyes  of 
a  father,  and  your  mad  action  of  writing 
to  a  stranger?  " 

'•  A  stranger,  papa  ?  say  rather  one  of 
our  greatest  poets,  whose  character  and 
whose  life  are  exposed  to  the  strongest 
light  of  day,  to  detraction  and  to  calumny 
— a  man  robed  in  fame,  to  whom,  my  dear 
father,  I  was  a  mere  literary  and  dra- 
matic personage,  one  of  Shakespeare's 
women,  until  the  moment  when  I  wished 
to  know  if  the  man  himself  were  as  beauti- 
ful as  his  soul." 

"  Good  God  I  my  poor  child,  you  are 
talking  poetry  about  marriage.  But  if, 
from  time  immemorial,  girls  have  been 
cloistered  in  the  bosom  of  their  families, 
if  God,  if  social  law  puts  them  under  the 
stern  yoke  of  parental  sanction,  it  is, 
mark  vay  words,  to  spare  them  the  mis- 
fortunes that  this  very  poetry  which 
charms  and  dazzles  you,  and  of  which 
you  are  therefore  unable  to  judge,  would 
entail  upon  them.  Poetry  is  indeed  one 
of  the  pleasures  of  life,  but  it  is  not  life 
itself." 

"  Papa,  that  is  a  suit  still  pending  be- 
fore the  Court  of  Facts ;  the  struggle  is 
forever  going  on  between  our  hearts  and 
the  claims  of  familj^." 

"  Alas  for  the  child  that  finds  her  happi- 
ness in  resisting  them,"  said  the  colonel 
gravely.  "  In  1813  I  saw  one  of  my  com- 
rades, the  Marquis  d'Aiglemont,  marry 
his  cousin  against  the  wishes  of  her 
father,  and  the  pair  have  since  paid  dear 
for  the  obstinacy  which  the  young  girl 
took  for  love.  The  family  must  be 
sovereign  in  marriage." 

"M^Y fiance  has  told  me  all  that,"  she' 
answered.     "  He  played  Orgon  for  some 
time ;  and  he  was  brave  enough  to  dis- 
parage the  personal  lives  of  poets." 

"I  have  read  your  letters,"  said  Charles 
Mignon,  with  a  malicious  smile  on  his  lips 
that  made  Modeste  uneasy,  "  and  I  must 
say  that  j'our  last  epistle  was  scarcely 
permissible  in  any  woman,  even  a  Julie 
d'Etanges.  Good  God  !  what  harm 
novels  do  !  " 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


407 


"  We  should  live  them,  my  dear  father, 
whether  people  wrote  them  or  not  ;  I 
tliink  it  is  better  to  read  them.  There 
are  not  so  many  adventures  in  these  days 
as  there  were  under  Louis  XIV.  and  Louis 
XV.,  when  fewer  novels  were  published. 
Besides,  if  you  have  read  those  letters, 
you  must  know  that  I  have  chosen  the 
most  ang-elic  soul,  the  most  sternly  up- 
right man  for  your  son-in-law,  and  you 
must  have  seen  that  we  love  one  another 
at  least  as  much  as  you  and  mamma  love 
each  other.  Well,  I  admit  that  it  was 
not  all  exactly  conventional ;  if  you  will 
have  me  say  so,  I  did  wrong- — " 

"1  have  read  your  letters,"  said  her 
father,  interrupting  her,  "  and  I  know 
exactly  how  far  your  lover  justified  you 
iu  your  own  eyes  for  a  proceeding  which 
might  be  permissible  in  some  woman  who 
understood  life,  and  who  was  led  awaj''  \>y 
strong  passion,  but  which  in  a  young  girl 
of  twenty  was  a  monstrous  piece  of  wrong- 
doing." 

'"'Yes,  wrong-doing  for  commonplace 
people,  for  the  narrow-minded  Goben- 
heims,  .who  measure  life  with  a  square 
rule.  Please  let  us  keep  to  the  artistic 
and  poetic  life,  papa.  We  young  girls 
have  only  two  waj's  to  act ;  we  must 
let  a  man  know  we  love  him  by  mincing 
and  simpering,  or  we  must  go  to  him 
frankly.  Is  not  the  last  way  grand  and 
noble  ?  We  French  girls  are  delivered 
over  by  our  families  like  so  much  mer- 
chandise, at  sixty  days'  sight,  sometimes 
thirty,  like  Mademoiselle  Vilquin  ;  but  in 
England,  and  Switzerland,  and  Germany, 
they  follow  very  much  the  plan  I  have 
adopted.  Now  what  have  you  got  to  say 
to  that  ?    Am  I  not  half  German  ?  " 

"Child  !  "  cried  the  colonel,  looking  at 
her ;  "  the  supremacy'  of  France  comes 
from  her  sound  common  sense,  from  the 
logic  to  which  her  noble  language  con- 
strains her  mind.  France  is  the  reason- 
ing power  of  the  whole  world.  England 
and  Germany  are  romantic  in  their  mar- 
riage customs — though  even  their  noble 
families  follow  our  customs.  You  cer- 
tainly do  not  mean  to  deny  that  your 
parents,  who  know  life,  who  are  respon- 
sible for  your  soul  and  for  your  happiness, 


have  the  right  to  guard  you  from  the 
stumbling-blocks  that  are  in  your  way  ? 
Good  heavens!"  he  continued,  "is  it 
their  fault,  of  is  it  ours  ?  Ought  we  to 
hold  our  children  under  an  iron  yoke? 
Must  we  be  punished  for  the  tenderness 
that  leads  us  to  make  them  happy,  and 
teaches  our  hearts  how  to  do  so  ?  " 

Modeste  watched  her  father  out  of  the 
comer  of  her  eye  as  she  listened  to  this 
species  of  invocation,  uttered  in  a  broken 
voice. 

"Was  it  wrong,"  she  said,  "in  a  girl 
whose  heart  was  free,  to  choose  for  her 
husband  not  only  a  charming  companion, 
but  a  man  of  noble  genius,  born  to  an  hon- 
orable position,  a  gentleman ;  the  equal  of 
myself,  a  gentlewoman  ?  " 

"  You  love  him  ?  "  asked  her  father. 

"  Father  !  "  she  said,  laying  her  head 
upon  his  breast,  "  would  you  see  me  die  ?  " 

"Enough  !  "  said  the  old  soldier.  "I 
see  your  love  is  inextinguishable." 

'•Yes,  inextinguishable." 

"  Can  nothing  change  it  ?  " 

"Nothing." 

"  No  circumstances,  no  treachery,  no 
betrayal  ?  You  mean  that  you  will  love 
him  in  spite  of  everything,  because  of  his 
personal  attractions  ?  Even  though  he 
proved  a  D'Estourny,  would  3'ou  love  him 
still  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  father !  j'ou  do  not  know 
your  daughter.  Could  I  love  a  coward, 
a  man  without  honor,  without  faith  .''  " 

"  But  suppose  he  had  deceived  you  ?  " 

"  He  ?  that  honest,  candid  man  ?  You 
are  joking,  father,  or  else  you  have  never 
met  him." 

"  But  you  see  now  that  your  love  is  not 
absolute,  as  you  said.  I  have  already 
made  you  think  of  circumstances  that 
could  alter  your  poem  ;  don't  you  now 
see  that  fathers  are  good  for  something  ?" 

"  You  want  to  give  me  a  lecture,  papa; 
it  is  positively  I'Ami  des  Enfants  over 
again." 

"Poor  deceived  girl,"  said  her  father, 
sternly  ;  "  it  is  no  lecture  of  mine  ;  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it  except  to  soften  the 
blow." 

"  Father,  don't  play  with  my  life,"  ex- 
claimed Modeste,  turning  pale. 


408 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"  Then,  my  daughter,  summon  all  your 
courage.  It  is  you  who  have  been  play- 
ing- with  your  life,  and  life  is  now  making 
sport  of  you." 

Mocieste  looked  at  her  father  in  stupid 
amazement. 

"  Suppose  that  the  young  man  whom 
you  love,  whom  you  saw  four  days  ago  at 
church  in  Ha^Te,  was  a  deceiver?  " 

"  Never  !"  she  cried ;  "  that  noble  head, 
that  pale  face  full  of  poetry — " 

"  — was  a  lie,"'  said  the  colonel,  inter- 
rupting her.  "  He  was  no  more  Monsieur 
de  Canalis  than  I  am  that  sailor  over 
there  putting  out  to  sea." 

"  Do  3'ou  know  what  y6u  are  killing  in 
me  ?  "  she  rejoined. 

"  Comfort  yourself,  my  child  ;  though 
accident  has  put  the  punishment  of  your 
fault  into  the  fault  itself,  the  harm  done 
is  not  irreparable.  The  young  man  whom 
3'ou  have  seen,  and  with  whom  you  ex- 
changed hearts  by  correspondence,  is  a 
loyal  and  honorable  fellow  ;  he  came  to 
me  and  confided  everything.  He  loves 
you,  and  I  have  no  objection  to  him  as  a 
son-in-law." 

"  If  he  is  not  Canalis,  who  is  he  then  ?" 
said  Modeste  in  a  changed  voice. 

"The  secretary' ;  his  name  is  Ernest  de 
la  Briere.  He  is  not  a  nobleman  ;  but 
he  is  one  of  those  plain  men  with  fixed 
principles  and  sound  moralitj''  who  satisfy 
parents.  However,  that  is  not  the  point; 
you  Iiave  seen  him  and  nothing  can 
change  j^our  heart ;  .you  have  chosen  him, 
you  comprehend  his  soul,  it  is  as  beauti- 
ful as  he  himself." 

The  count  was  interrupted  by  a  heav^' 
sigh  from  Modeste.  The  poor  girl  sat 
with  her  ej^es  fixed  on  the  sea,  pale  and 
rigid  as  death,  as  if  a  pistol  shot  had 
struck  her  in  those  fatal  words,  a  plain 
man,  with  fixed  principles  and  sound 
morality. 

'-Deceived  !  "  she  said  at  last. 

"Like  your  poor  sister,  but  less  fatally." 

"  Let  us  go  home,  father,"  she  said, 
rising  from  the  hillock  on  which  they 
were  sitting.  "Papa,  hear  me,  I  swear 
before  God  to  obey  your  wishes,  what- 
ever they  maj'  be,  concerning  my  mar- 
riage." 


"  Then  you  don't  love  him  any  longer  ?" 
asked  her  father. 

'•  I  loved  an  honest  man,  with  no  false- 
hood on  his  face,  upright  as  yourself, 
incapable  of  disguising  himself  like  an 
actor,  with  the  paint  of  another  man's 
glory  on  his  cheeks." 

"You  said  nothing  could  change  you," 
remarked  the  colonel,  ironically'. 

"Ah,  do  not  trifle  with  me  !"  she  ex- 
claimed, clasping  her  hands  and  looking 
at  her  father  in  distressful  anxiety; 
"don't  you  see  that  you  are  wringing 
my  heart  and  destroying  my  beliefs  with 
your  jests  ?  " 

"  God  forbid  !  I  have  told  you  the 
exact  truth." 

"  You  are  very  kind,  father,"  she  said 
after  a  pause,  and  with*  a  kind  of  solem- 
nity. 

"He  has  kept  j'our  letters,"  resumed 
the  colonel;  "now  suppose  the  rash  ca- 
resses of  your  soul  had  fallen  into  tbe 
hands  of  one  of  those  poets  who,  as 
Dumay  saj'S,  light  their  cigars  with 
them  ?  " 

"■  Oh  ! — ^\-ou  are  going  too  far."  . 

"  Canalis  told  him  so." 

"  Has  Dumay  seen  Canalis  ?  " 

"Yes,"  answered  her  father. 

The  two  walked  along  in  silence. 

"So  this  is  why  that  gentleman,"  re- 
sumed Modeste,  "  told  me  so  much  evil  of 
poets  and  poetry ;  why  this  little  secre- 
tary said —  But,"  she  added,  interrupt- 
ing herself,  "  his  virtues,  his  noble  qual- 
ities, his  fine  sentiments  are  nothing 
but  an  epistolary  costume.  The  man 
who  steals  glory  and  a  name  may  very 
likely—" 

"  — break  locks,  steal  purses,  and  cut 
people's  throats  on  the  highway,"  cried 
the  colonel.  "  Ah,  you  young  girls,  that's 
just  like  you — with  your  peremptory  opin- 
ions and  your  ignorance  of  life.  A  man 
who  is  capable  of  deceiving  a  woman  is 
either  on  his  way  down  from  the  scaffold, 
or  about  to  die  on  it." 

This  ridicule  stopped  Modeste's  effer- 
vescence, and  again  there  was  silence. 

"  My  child,"  said  the  colonel,  presently, 
"men  in  society,  as  in  nature  everj'where, 
are  made  to  win  the  hearts  of  women,  and 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


409 


women  must  defend  themselves.  You 
have  chosen  to  mvert  the  parts.  Was 
that  wise  ?  Everj'thing-  is  false  in  a 
false  position.  The  first  wrong'-doing 
was  yours.  No,  a  man  is  not  a  monster 
because  he  seeks  to  please  a  woman ;  it 
is  our  right  to  win  her  by  aggression 
with  all  its  consequences,  short  of  crime 
and  cowardice.  A  man  may  have  many 
virtues  even  if  he  does  deceive  a  woman ; 
if  he  deceives  her,  it  is  because  he  finds 
her  wanting  in  some  of  the  treasures  that 
he  sought  in  her.  None  but  a  queen,  an 
actress,  or  a  woman  placed  so  far  above 
a  man  that  she  seems  to  him  a  queen, 
can  go  to  him  of  herself  without  incur- 
ring blame — and  for  a  young  girl  to  do 
it !  Whj',  she  is  false  to  all  that  God 
has  given  her  that  is  sacred  and  lovely 
and  noble — no  matter  with  what  grace 
or  what  poetry  or  what  precautions  she 
surrounds  her  fault." 

"  To  seek  the  master  and  find  the  ser- 
vant !  "  she  said  bitterly,  ''  oh  !  I  can 
never  recover  from  it !  " 

"Nonsense!  Monsieur  Ernest  de  la 
Briere  is,  to  my  thinking,  fully  the 
equal  of  the  Baron  de  Canalis.  He  was 
private  secretary  of  a  cabinet  minister, 
and  he  is  now  counsel  for  the  court  of 
Claims ;  he  has  a  heart,  and  he  adores 
you,  but — he  does  not  write  verses.  No, 
I  admit,  he  is  not  a  poet ;  but  for  all  that 
he  may  have  a  heart  full  of  poetry.  At 
any  rate,  my  dear  girl,"  added  her  fa- 
ther, as  Modeste  made  a  gesture  of  dis- 
gust, "you  are  to  see  both  of  them,  the 
sham  and  the  true  Canalis — " 

"  Oh,  papa  1—" 

"Did  you  not  swear  just  now  to  obey 
me  in  everything,  even  in  the  affair  of 
your  marriage?  Well,  I  allow  you  to 
choose  which  of  the  two  you  like  best  for 
a  husband.  You  have  begun  bj'  a  poem, 
you  shall  finish  with  a  bucolic,  and  tvy  if 
you  can  discover  the  real  character  of 
these  gentlemen  here,  in  the  countrj^  on 
a  few  hunting  or  fishing  excursions." 

Modeste  bowed  her  head  and  walked 
home  with  her  father,  listening  to  what 
he  said  but  replj'ing  only  in  monosyl- 
lables. 


XVI. 

Modeste  had  fallen  humiliated  from 
the  alp  she  had  scaled  in  search  of  her 
eag'le's  nest,  into  the  mud  of  the  swamp 
below,  where  (to  use  the  poetic  language 
of  an  author  of  our  day),  "  after  feeling 
the  soles  of  her  feet  too  tender  to  tread 
the  broken  glass  of  reality.  Imagination 
— which  in  that  delicate  bosom  united  the 
whole  of  womanhood,  from  the  flower- 
strewTi  reveries  of  a  chaste  young  girl  to 
the  passionate  desires  of  the  sex — had  led 
her  into  enchanted  gardens  where,  oh, 
bitter  sight !  she  now  saw,  springing 
from  the  ground,  not  the  sublime  flower 
of  her  fancy,  but  the  hairy,  twisted  limbs 
of  the  black  mandragora."  Modeste  sud- 
denly found  herself  brought  down  from 
the  mystic  heights  of  her  love  to  a  straight, 
flat  road  bordered  with  ditches,  path  of 
the  commonplace.  What  ardent,  aspir- 
ing soul  would  not  have  been  bruised  and 
broken  by  such  a  fall  ?  Whose  feet  were 
these  at  which  she  had  shed  her  thoughts  ? 
The  Modeste  who  re-entered  the  Chalet 
was  no  more  the  Modeste  who  had  left  it 
two  hours  earlier  than  an  actress  in  the 
street  is  like  an  actress  on  the  boards. 
She  fell  into  a  state  of  numb  depression 
that  was  pitiful  to  see.  The  sun  was 
darkened.  Nature  veiled  itself,  even  the 
flowers  no  longer  spoke  to  her.  Like  all 
young  girls  with  a  tendency  to  extremes, 
she  drank  too  deeplj'  of  the  cup  of  disil- 
lusion. She  fought  against  reality,  and 
would  not  bend  her  neck  to  the  yoke  of 
family  and  conventionality ;  it  was,  she 
felt,  too  heavy,  too  hard,  too  crushing. 
She  would  not  listen  to  the  consolations 
of  her  father  and  mother,  and  tasted  a 
sort  of  savage  pleasure  in  letting  her  soul 
suffer  to  the  utmost. 

'■  Poor  Butscha  was  right,"  she  said 
one  evening. 

The  words  indicate  the  distance  she 
traveled  in  a  short  space  of  time  and  in 
gloomy  sadness  across  the  barren  plain 
of  reality.  Sadness,  when  caused  by  the 
overgrowth  of  hope,  is  a  disease — some- 
times a  fatal  one.  It  would  be  no  mean 
object  for  physiology  to  search  out  in 
what  ways  and  by  what  means  Thought 


410 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


produces  the  same  internal  disorg^anization 
as  poison ;  and  how  ifc  is  that  despair  af- 
fects the  appetite,  destroys  the  pylorus, 
and  changes  all  the  physical  conditions  of 
the  strongest  life.  Such  was  the  case  with 
Modeste.  In  three  short  daj-s  she  became 
the  image  of  morbid  melancholy  ;  she  did 
not  sing,  she  could  not  be  made  to  smile. 
Charles  Mignon,  becoming  uneasy  at  the 
non-arrival  of  the  two  friends,  thought  of 
going  to  fetch  them,  when,  on  the  evening 
of  the  fifth  da.y,  he  received  news  of  their 
movements. through  Latournelle. 

Canalis,  excessively  delighted  at  the 
idea  of  such  a  rich  marriage,  was  deter- 
mined to  neglect  nothing  that  might  help 
him  to  cut  out  La  Briers,  without,  how- 
ever, giving  the  latter  a  chance  to  I'e- 
proach  him  for  having  violated  the  laws 
•of  friendship.  The  poet  felt  that  nothing 
would  lower  a  lover  so  much  in  the  eyes 
of  a  young  girl  as  to  exhibit  him  in  a  sub- 
ordinate position  ;  and  he  therefore  pro- 
posed to  La  Briere,  in  the  most  natural 
manner,  to  take  a  little  country-house  at 
Ingouville  for  a  month,  and  live  there  to- 
gether on  pretense  of  requiring  sea-air. 
As  soon  as  La  Briere,  who  at  first  saw 
nothing  amiss  in  the  proposal,  had  con- 
sented, Canalis  declared  that  he  should 
pay  all  expenses,  and  he  sent  his  valet  to 
Havre,  telling  him  to  see  Monsieur  Latour- 
nelle and  get  his  assistance  in  choosing 
the  house  —  well  aware  .  that  the  notary 
would  repeat  all  particulars  to  the  Mi- 
gnons.  Ernest  and  Canalis  had,  as  may 
well  be  supposed,  talked  over  all  the  as- 
pects of  the  affair,  and  the  rather  prolix 
Ernest  had  given  a  good  many  useful 
hints  to  his  rival.  The  valet,  understand- 
ing his  master's  wishes,  fulfilled  them  to 
the  letter ;  he  trumpeted  the  arrival  of  the 
great  poet,  for  whom  the  doctors  ordered 
sea-baths  to  restore  his  health,  injured 
as  it  was  by  the  double  toils  of  litera- 
ture and  politics.  This  important  per- 
sonage wanted  a  house,  which  must  have 
at  least  such  and  such  a  number  of  rooms, 
as  he  would  bring  with  him  a  secretary', 
cook,  two  servants,  and  a  coachman,  not 
counting  himself,  Germain  Bonnet,  the 
valet.  The  carriage,  selected  and  hired 
for  a  month  by  Canalis,  was  a  pretty  one  ; 


and  Germain  set  about  finding  a  pair  of 
fine  horses  which  would  also  answer  as 
saddle-horses — for,  as  he  said.  Monsieur 
le  Baron  and  his  secretary  took  horseback 
exercise.  Under  the  eyes  of  little  Latour- 
nelle, who  went  with  him  to  various 
houses,  Germain  made  a  good  deal  of 
talk  about  the  secretary,  rejecting  two  or 
three  because  there  was  no  suitable  room 
for  Monsieur  de  la  Briere. 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  he  said  to  the 
notary,  ''makes  his  secretary  quite  his 
best  friend.  Ah  !  I  should  be  well  scolded 
if  Monsieur  de  la  Briere  were  not  as  well 
treated  as  Monsieur  le  Baron  himself ;  and 
after  all,  you  know.  Monsieur  de  la  Bi'iere 
is  a  lawyer  in  my  master's  court." 

Germain  never  appeared  in  public  un- 
less dressed  in  black,  with  spotless  gloves, 
well-polished  boots,  and  otherwise  as  well 
appareled  as  a  lawyer.  Imagine  the  ef- 
fect he  produced  in  Havre,  and  the  idea 
people  took  of  the  great  poet  from  this 
sample  of  him  !  The  valet  of  a  man  of 
wit  and  intellect  ends  by  getting  a  little 
wit  and  intellect  himself  which  has  rubbed 
off  from  his  master.  Germain  did  not 
overplay  his  part;  he  was  simple  and 
good-humored,  as  Canalis  had  instructed 
him  to  be.  Poor  La  Briere  did  not  sus- 
pect the  harm  Germain  was  doing  to  his 
prospects,  and  the  depreciation  of  him- 
self to  which  he  had  consented ;  for  some 
inkling  of  the  state  of  things  rose  to 
Modeste's  ears  from  these  lower  regions. 

Canalis  had  arranged  to  bring  his  sec- 
retary in  his  own  carriage,  and  Ernest's 
unsuspicious  nature  did  not  perceive  that 
he  was  putting  himself  in  a  false  position 
until  too  late  to  remedy  it.  The  delay  in 
the  arrival  of  the  pair  which  had  troubled 
Charles  Mignon  was  caused  by  the  paint- 
ing of  the  Canalis  arms  on  the  panels  of 
the  carriage,  and  by  certain  orders  given 
to  a  tailor ;  for  the  poet  neglected  none 
of  the  innumerable  details  which  might, 
even  the  smallest  of  them,  influence  a 
young  girl. 

"It  is  all  right,"  said  Latournelle  to 
Mignon  on  the  sixth  day.  "  The  baron's 
valet  has  hired  Madame  Amaury's  villa 
at  Sanvic,  all  furnished,  for  seven  hun- 
dred francs  :  he  has  written  to  his  master 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


411 


that  he  may  start,  and  that  all  will  be 
read^'  on  his  arrival.  So  the  two  grentle- 
men  will  be  here  Sunday.  I  have  also 
had  a  letter  from  Butscha ;  here  it  is  ; 
it's  not  long- :  '  M.j  dear  master — I  can- 
not g-et  back  till  Sunday.  Between  now 
and  then  I  have  some  very  important  in- 
quiries to  make  which  concern  the  happi- 
ness of  a  person  in  whom  you  take  an 
interest.'  " 

The  announcement  of  this  arrival  did 
not  arouse  Modeste  from  her  gloom  ;  the 
sense  of  her  full  and  the  bewilderment  of 
her  mind  were  still  too  g-reat,  and  she  was 
not  nearly  as  much  of  a  coquette  as  her 
father  thought  her  to  be.  There  is  a 
charming-  and  permissible  coquetry,  that 
of  the  soul,  which  may  be  termed  love's 
politeness.  Charles  Mignon,  when  scold- 
ing his  daughter,  failed  to  distinguish 
between  the  mere  desire  of  pleasing  and 
the  love  of  the  mind — the  thirst  for  love, 
and  the  thirst  for  admiration.  Like  every 
true  colonel  of  the  empire,  he  saw  in  this 
correspondence,  rapidly  read,  only  the 
young  girl  who  had  thrown  herself  at  the 
head  of  a  poet ;  but  in  the  letters  which 
we  were  forced  for  lack  of  space  to  sup- 
press, a  better  judge  would  have  admired 
the  graceful  and  modest  reserve  which 
Modeste  had  substituted  for  the  rather 
aggressive  and  light-minded  tone  of  her 
first  letters.  The  father,  however,  was 
only  too  cruelly  right  on  one  point.  Mo- 
deste's  last  letter  had  indeed  spoken  as 
though  the  marriage  were  a  settled  fact, 
and  the  remembrance  of  that  letter  filled 
her  with  shame  ;  she  thought  her  father 
very  harsh  and  cruel  to  force  her  to  re- 
ceive a  man  unworthy  of  her,  yet  to  whom 
her  soul  had  flown.  She  questioned  Du- 
may  about  his  interview  with  the  poet, 
she  inveigled  him  into  relating  its  eveiy 
detail,  and  she  did  not  think  Canalis  as 
barbarous  as  the  lieutenant  had  declared 
him.  The  thought  of  the  beautiful  casket 
which  held  the  letters  of  the  thousand  and 
one  women  of  this  literary  Don  Juan  made 
her  smile,  and  she  was  strongly  tempted 
to  saj"-  to  her  father :  "  I  am  not  the  only 
one  to  write  to  him  ;  the  elite  of  women 
send  their  leaves  for  the  laurel  wreath  of 
the  poet." 


During  this  week  Modeste's  character 
underwent  a  transformation.  The  catas- 
trophe— and  it  was  a  great  one  to  her 
poetic  nature — roused  a  faculty  of  discern- 
ment and  also  the  latent  malice  in  her 
girlish  heart,  in  which  her  suitors  were 
about  to  encounter  a  formidable  adver- 
sarj-.  It  is  a  fact  that  when  a  young 
woman's  heart  is  chilled  her  head  be- 
comes clear ;  she  observes  with  great 
rapidity  of  judgment,  and  with  a  tinge  of 
pleasantry  which  Shakespeare's  Beatrice 
so  admirably  represents  in  "  Much  Ado 
about  Nothing."  Modeste  was  seized 
with  a  deep  disgust  for  men,  now  that  the 
most  distinguished  among  them  had  be- 
trayed her  hopes.  When  a  woman  loves, 
what  she  takes  for  disgust  is  simplj-  the 
abilitj"-  to  see  clearly ;  but  in  matters  of 
sentiment  she  is  never,  especially  if  she 
is  ^  young  girl,  in  a  condition  to  see  the 
truth.  If  she  cannot  admire,  she  de- 
spises. And  so,  after  passing  through 
terrible  struggles  of  the  soul,  Modeste 
necessarily  put  on  the  armor  on  which, 
as  she  declared,  the  word  "  Disdain  "  was 
engraved.  After  reaching  that  point  she 
was  able,  in  the  character  of  uninterested 
spectator,  to  take  part  in  what  she  was 
pleased  to  call  the  "farce  of  the  suitors," 
a  performance  in  which  she  herself  was 
about  to  play  the  role  of  heroine.  She 
particularly  anticipated  the  satisfaction 
of  humiliating  Monsieur  de  la  Briere. 

"Modeste  is  saved,"  said  Madame  Mi- 
gnon to  her  husband ;  "'  she  wants  to 
revenge  herself  on  the  false  Canalis  by 
trying  to  love  the  real  one." 

Such  in  truth  was  Modeste's  plan.  It 
was  so  utterly'  commonplace  that  her 
mother,  to  whom  she  confided  her  griefs, 
advised  her  on  the  contrary'  to  treat  Mon- 
sieur dela  Briere  with  extreme  politeness. 


XVII. 


"  Those  two  young  men."  said  Madame 
Latournelle,  on  the  Saturday  evening, 
"  do  not  suspect  the  number  of  spies  they 
have  on  their  track.  There  are  eight  of 
us  on  the  watch." 


413 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"Don't  say  two  young  men,  wife;  say 
three  ! "  cried  little  Latoumclle,  looking' 
round  him.  "  Gobenhciin  is  not  here,  so 
I  can  speak  out." 

Modeste  raised  her  head,  and  everybody, 
imitating  Modeste,raised  theirs  and  looked 
at  the  notary. 

"  Yes,  a  third  lover — and  he  is  some- 
thing like  a  lover — offers  himself  as  a 
candidate." 

"  Bah  !  "  exclaimed  the  colonel. 

"I  speak  of  no  less  a  person,"  said 
Latournelle,  pompously,  "  than  Monsieur 
le  Due  d'Herouville,  marquis  de  Saint- 
Sever,  due  de  Nivron,  comte  de  Bayeux, 
vicomte  d'Essigny,  grand  equerry  and 
peer  of  France,  knight  of  the  Spur  and 
the  Golden  Fleece,  grandee  of  Spain, 
and  son  of  the  last  governor  of  Nor- 
mandy. He  saw  Mademoiselle  Modeste 
at  the  time  when  he  was  staying  with 
the  Vilquins,  and  he  regretted  then- — as 
his  notary,  who  .came  from  Bayeux  yes- 
terday, tells  me — that  she  was  not  rich 
enough  for  him  ;  for  his  father  recovered 
nothing  but  the  estate  of  Herouville  on 
his  return  to  France,  and  that  is  saddled 
with  a  sister.  The  j'oung  duke  is  thirty- 
three  years  old.  I  am  definitively  charged 
to  lay  these  proposals  before  j^ou.  Mon- 
sieur le  Comte,"  added  the  notary,  turn- 
ing respectfully  to  the  colonel. 

"  Ask  Modeste  if  she  wants  another 
bird  in  her  aviary,"  replied  the  count ; 
"as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  am  willing 
that  my  lord  the  grand  equerry  shall  pay 
her  attention." 

Notwithstanding  the  care  with  which 
Charles  Mignon  avoided  seeing  people, 
and  though  he  stayed  in  the  Chalet  and 
never  went  out  without  Modeste,  Goben- 
heim  had  reported  Dumay's  wealth  ;  for 
Dumay  had  said  to  him  when  giving  up 
his  position  as  cashier :  "I  am  to  be 
bailiff  for  my  colonel,  and  all  my  fortune, 
except  what  my  wife  needs,  is  to  go  to 
the  children  of  our  little  Modeste."  Every 
one  in  Havre  had  therefore  propounded 
the  simple  question  that  the  notary  had 
already  put  to  himself :  "  If  Dumay's 
share  in  the  profits  is  six  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,  and  he  is  going  to  be  Mon- 
sieur Mignon's  bailiff,  then  Monsieur  Mi- 


gnon must  certainly  have  an  immense 
fortune.  He  arrived  at  Marseilles  on  a 
ship  of  his  own,  loaded  with  indigo  ;  and 
they  say  at  the  Bourse  that  the  cargo, 
not  counting  the  ship,  is  worth  more  than 
he  gives  out  as  his  whole  fortune." 

The  colonel  was  unwilling  to  dismiss  the 
servants  he  had  brought  back  with  him, 
whom  he  had  chosen  with  care  during  his 
travels;  and  he  therefore  hired  a  house 
for  them  for  six  months,  in  the  lower  part 
of  Ingouville,  where  he  installed  his  valet, 
cook,  and  coachman,  all  negroes,  and 
three  mulattoes  on  whose  fidelity  he  could 
relj'.  The  coachman  was  told  to  search 
for  saddle-horses  for  mademoiselle  and 
for  his  master,  and  for  carriage-horses 
for  the  caleche  in  which  the  colonel  and 
the  lieutenant  had  returned  to  Havre. 
That  carriage,  bought  in  Paris,  was  of 
the  latest  fashion,  and  bore  the  arms  of 
La  Bastie,  surmounted  by  a  count's  coro- 
net. These  things,  insignificant  in  the 
eyes  of  a  man  who  for  four  years  had 
been  accustomed  to  the  unbridled  luxury 
of  the  Indies  and  of  the  English  mer- 
chants at  Canton,  Avere  the  subject  of 
much  comment  among  the  business  men 
of  Havre  and  the  inhabitants  of  Ingou- 
ville and  Graville.  Before  five  days  had 
elapsed  the  rumor  of  them  ran  from  one 
end  of  Normandy  to  the  other  like  a  train 
of  gunpowder  touched  by  fire. 

"Monsieur  Mignon  has  come  back  from 
China  with  millions,"  some  one  said  in 
Rouen ;  "  and  it  seems  he  was  made  a 
count  in  mid-ocean." 

"  But  he  was  the  Comte  de  la  Bastie 
before  the  Revolution,"  answered  an- 
other. 

"  So  they  call  him  a  liberal  just  because 
he  was  plain  Charles  Mignon  for  twenty- 
five  years  !  What  are  we  coming  to  ?  " 
said  a  third. 

Modeste  was  considered,  therefore,  not- 
withstanding the  silence  of  her  parents 
and  friends,  as  the  richest  heiress  in  Nor- 
mandy, and  all  eyes  began  once  more  to 
see  her  merits.  The  aunt  and  sister  of 
the  Due  d'Herouville  confirmed  in  the 
aristocratic  salons  of  Bayeux  Monsieur 
Charles  Mignon's  right  to  the  title  and 
arms   of    count,   derived   from    Cardinal 


MODESTE    MIQNON. 


413 


Mig-non,  for  whom  the  cardinal's  hat  and 
tassels  were  added  as  a  crest.  They  had 
seen  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie  when  they 
were  staying  at  the  Vilquins,  and  their 
solicitude  for  the  impoverished  head  of 
their  house  now  became  active. 

"  If  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie  is  really 
as  rich  as  she  is  beautiful,"  said  the  aunt 
of  the  young-  duke,  "  she  is  the  best  match 
in  the  province.     She  at  least  is  noble." 

The  last  words  were  aimed  at  the  Vil- 
quins, with  whom  they  had  not  been  able 
to  come  to  terms,  after  incurring  the  hu- 
miliation of  staying  in  that  bourgeois 
household. 

Such  were  the  events  which,  contrary 
to  the  rules  of  Aristotle  and  of  Horace, 
were  to  introduce  another  person  into  our 
stor^- ;  but  the  portrait  and  the  biography 
of  this  personage,  this  late  arrival,  shall 
not  be  long,  taking  into  consideration  his 
own  diminutiveness.  The  grand  equerry 
shall  not  take  more  space  here  than  he 
will  take  in  history.  Monsieur  le  Due 
d'Herouville,  offspring  of  the  matrimo- 
nial autumn  of  the  last  governor  of  Nor- 
mandy, was  born  during  the  emigration 
in  1796,  at  Vienna.  The  old  marechal, 
father  of  the  present  duke,  returned  with 
the  king  in  1S14,  and  died  in  1819,  before 
he  was  able  to  marry  his  son,  who  was 
Due  de  Nivron.  He  could  only  leave  him 
the  vast  chateau  of  Herouville,  the  park, 
a  few  dependencies,  and  a  farm  which  he 
had  bought  back  with  some  difficulty ;  all 
of  which  returned  a  rental  of  about  fifteen 
thousand  francs  a  year.  Louis  XVIII. 
gave  the  post  of  grand  equerry  to  the 
son,  who,  under  Charles  X.,  received  the 
usual  pension  of  twelve  thousand  francs 
which  was  granted  to  the  pauper  peers  of 
France.  But  what  were  these  twenty- 
seven  thousand  francs  a  year  and  the 
salary'  of  grand  equerry  to  such  a  family  ? 
In  Paris,  of  course,  the  j'oung  duke  used 
the  king's  coaches,  and  had  a  mansion 
provided  for  him  in  the  Rue  Saint  Thomas 
du  Lou\Te,  near  the  royal  stables ;  his 
salary  paid  for  his  winters  in  the  city, 
and  his  twenty-seven  thousand  francs  for 
the  summers  in  Normandy. 

The  fact  that  this  noble  personage  was 
still  a  bachelor  was  less  his  fault  than  that 


of  his  aunt,  who  was  not  versed  in  La 
Fontaine's  fables.  Mademoiselle  d'Herou- 
ville made  enormous  pretensions,  wholly 
out  of  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  times ; 
for  great  names,  without  the  money  to 
keep  them  up,  can  seldom  win  rich  heir- 
esses among  the  higher  French  nobility, 
who  are  themselves  embarrassed  to  pro- 
vide for  their  sons  under  the  new  law  of 
the  equal  division  of  property.  To  mar- 
ry the  3'oung  Due  d'Herouville,  advanta- 
geously, it  would  have  been  necessan,'  to 
conciliate  the  great  banking-houses  ;  but 
the  haughty  pride  of  the  daughter  of  the 
house  alienated  these  people'  by  cutting 
speeches.  During  the  first  years  of  the 
Restoration,  from  1817  to  1825,  Mademoi- 
selle d'Herouville,  though  in  quest  of  mil- 
lions, refused,  among  others,  the  daughter 
of  Mongenod  the  banker,  with  whom  Mon- 
sieur de  Fontaine  afterward  contented 
himself. 

At  last,  having  lost  several  good  op- 
portunities to  establish  her  nephew,  en- 
tirely through  her  own  fault,  she  was  just 
now  thinking  that  the  property  of  the 
Nucingens  was  basely  acquired,  and  that 
she  did  not  desire  to  lend  herself  to  the 
ambition  of  Madame  de  Nucingen,  who 
wished  to  make  her  daughter  a  duchess. 
The  king,  anxious  to  restore  the  D'Herou- 
villes  to  their  former  splendor,  had  almost 
brought  about  this  mari'iage,  and  when 
it  failed  he  openly  accused  Mademoiselle 
d'Herou^nlle  of  folly.  In  this .  way  the 
aunt  made  the  nephew  ridiculous,  and 
the  nephew,  in  his  own  way,  was  not  less 
absurd.  When  great  things  disappear 
they  leave  crumbs,  frusteaux,  as  Rabelais 
would  say,  behind  them ;  and  the  French 
nobility  of  this  century  has  left  us  too 
many  such  fragments.  Neither  the  clergy 
nor  the  nobility  have  anything  to  complain 
of  in  this  long  history  of  manners  and  cus- 
toms. Those  great  and  magnificent  social 
necessities  have  been  well  represented ; 
but  we  ought  surely'  to  renounce  the 
noble  title  of  historian  if  we  are  not  im- 
partial, if  we  do  not  here  depict  the  pres- 
ent degeneracy  of  the  race  of  nobles,  as 
we  have  done  elsewhere — in  the  character 
of  the  emigrant,  the  Comte  de  Mortsauf 
(m  "The  Lily  of  the  Valley"),  and  the- 


414 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


very  nobleness  of  the  nobility  in  the  Mar- 
quis d'Espard  (in  the  "Interdiction"). 
How  then  could  it  be  that  the  race  of 
heroes  and  valiant  men  belong-ing-  to  the 
proud  house  of  Hei-ouville,  who  gave  the 
famous  marshal  to  the  nation,  cardinals 
to  the  church,  great  leaders  to  the  Valois, 
knights  to  Louis  XIV.,  was  reduced  to.  a 
little  fragile  being  smaller  than  Butscha? 
That  is  a  question  which  we  ask  ourselves 
in  more  than  one  salon  in  Paris  when  we 
hear  some  of  the  greatest  names  of  France 
announced,  and  see  the  entrance  of  a  thin, 
pinched,  undersized  young  man,  scarcely 
possessing  the  breath  of  life,  or  a  prema- 
ture old  one,  or  some  whimsical  creature 
in  whom  an  observer  can  with  great  dif- 
ficulty trace  the  signs  of  past  grandeur. 
The  dissipations  of  the  reign  of  Louis 
XV.,  the  orgies  of  that  fatal  and  egotistic 
period,  have  produced  an  effete  genera- 
tion, in  which  manners  alone  survive  the 
nobler  vanquished  qualities — forms,  which 
are  the  sole  heritage  our  nobles  have  pre- 
served. The  abandonment  in  which  Louis 
XVI.  was  allowed  to  perish  may  thus  be 
explained,  with  some  slight  reservations, 
as  a  wretched  result  of  the  reign  of  Ma- 
dame de  Pompadour. 

The  grand  equerr^',  a  fair  young  man 
with  blue  eyes  and  a  pallid  face,  was  not 
without  a  certain  dignity  of  thought ; 
but  his  thin,  undersized  figure,  and  the 
follies  of  his  aunt,  who  had  taken  him  to 
the  Vilquins  and  elsewhere  to  pay  his 
court,  rendered  him  extremely  diffident. 
The  house  of  Herouville  had  already  been 
threatened,  with  extinction  by  the  deed 
of  a  deformed  being  (see  the  Enfant 
Maudit  in  "Philosophical  Studies"). 
The  grand  marshal,  that  being  the 
l?mih^  term  for  the  member  who  was 
made  duke  by  Louis  XIII.,  married  at 
the  age  of  eighty.  The  young  duke  ad- 
mired women,  but  he  placed  them  too 
high  and  respected  them  too  much ;  in 
fact,  he  adored  them,  and  was  only  at 
his  ease  with  those  whom  he  could  not 
respect.  This  characteristic  caused  him 
to  lead  a  double  life.  He  found  compen- 
sation with  women  of  lesser  morals  for 
the  worship  to  which  he  gave  himself  up 
in  the  salons,  or,  if  you  like,  the  boudoirs. 


of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  Such 
habits,  with  his  puny  figure  and  his  mourn- 
ful face  with  its  blue  eyes  turning  up- 
ward in  ecstasy,  increased  the  ridicule  al- 
ready bestowed  upon  him — very  unjustly 
bestowed,  as  it  happened,  for  he  was  full 
of  wit  and  delicacy ;  but  his  wit,  which 
never  sparkled,  only  showed  itself  when 
he  felt  at  ease.  Fannj^  Beaupre,  an 
actress  who  was  supposed  to  be  his 
nearest  friend,  called  him  "  a  good 
wine,  but  so  carefully  corked  that  all 
the  corkscrews  break."  The  beautiful 
Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse,  whom  the 
grand  equerry  could  only  worship,  an- 
nihilated him  with  a  speech  which,  un- 
fortunately, was  repeated  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  like  all  such  pretty  and  malicious 
sayings. 

"He  always  seems  to  me,"  she  said, 
"  like  one  of  those  jewels  of  fine  work- 
manship which  we  exhibit  but  never 
wear,  and  keep  in  cotton-wool." 

Everything  about  him,  even  to  his  ab- 
surdly contrasting  title  of  grand  equerry, 
amused  the  good-natured  king,  Charles 
X.,  and  made  him  laugh^although  the 
Due  d 'Herouville  justified  his  appoint- 
ment in  the  matter  of  being  a  fine  horse- 
man. Men  are  like  books;  they  are 
sometimes  understood  and  appreciated 
too  late.  Modeste  had  seen  the  duke 
during  his  fruitless  visit  to  the  Vilquins, 
and  many  of  these  reflections  passed 
through  her  mind  as  .she  watched  him 
come  and  go.  But  under  the  circum- 
stances in  which  she  now  found  her- 
self, she  saw  plainly  that  the  court- 
ship of  the  Due  d'Herouville  would  save 
her  from  being  at  the  mercy  of  either 
Canalis. 

"I  see  no  reason,"  she  said  to  Latour- 
nelle,  "why  the  Due  d'Herouville  should 
not  be  received.  I  pass,  in  spite  of  our 
poverty,"  she  continued,  with  a  mischiev- 
ous look  at  her  father,  "  for  an  heiress. 
I  shall  probably  end  by  keeping  a  list  of 
mj'  conquests.  Haven't  you  observed 
Gobenheim's  glances  ?  They  have  quite 
changed  their  character  within  a  week. 
He  is  in  despair  at  not  being  able  to  make 
his  games  of  whist  count  for  mute  adora- 
tion of  my  charms." 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


415 


"Husli,  my  darling!"  cried  Madame 
Latournelle,  '•  liere  he  comes." 

"Old  Althor  is  in  despair,"  said  Goben- 
heim  to  Monsieur  Mig-non  as  he  entered. 

•'Why?"  asked  the  count. 

'•'  Vilquin  is  going-  to  fail ;  and  the 
Bourse  thinks  you  are  worth  several  mil- 
lions.    What  ill-luck  for  his  son  !  " 

"  No  one  knows,"  said  Charles  Mignon, 
dryly,  '•'  what  my  liabilities  in  India  are ; 
and  I  do  not  intend  to  take  the  public 
into  va.y  confidence  as  to  m3'^  private  af- 
fairs. Dumay,"  he  whispered  to  his 
friend,  "  if  Vilquin  is  embarrassed  we 
could  get  back  the  villa  by  paying  him 
what  he  gave  for  it." 

Such  was  the  general  state  of  things, 
due  chiefly  to  accident,  when  on  Sunday 
morning  Canalis  and  La  Briere  arrived, 
with  a  courier  in  advance,  at  the  villa  of 
Madame  Amaury.  It  was  known  that 
the  Due  d'Herouville,  his  sister,  and  his 
aunt  were  coming  the  following  Tuesday 
to  occupy,  also  under  pretext  of  ill-health, 
a  hired  house  at  Graville.  This  assem- 
blage of  suitors  made  the  wits  of  the 
Bourse  remark  that,  thanks  to  Made- 
moiselle Mignon,  rents  would  rise  at 
Ingouville.  "  If  this  goes  on,  she  will 
have  a  hospital  here,"  said  the  j'ounger 
Mademoiselle  Vilquin,  vexed  at  not  be- 
coming a  duchess. 

The  everlasting  comedy  of  "The  Heir- 
ess," about  to  be  played  at  the  Chalet, 
might .  very  well  be  called,  in  view  of 
Modeste's  frame  of  mind,  "The  Designs 
of  a  Young  Girl;  "  for  since  the  over- 
throw of  her  illusions  she  had  fully  made 
up  her  mind  to  give  her  hand  to  no  man 
whose  qualifications  did  not  fully  satisfy 
her. 

On  the  following  evening  the  two  rivals, 
still  intimate  friends,  prepared  to  pay  their 
first  visit  to  the  Chalet.  They  had  spent 
Sunday  and  part  of  Monday  in  unpacking 
and  arranging  Madame  Amaur^^'s  house 
for  a  month's  stay.  The  poet,  always 
'  calculating  effects,  wished  to  make  the 
most  of  the  probable  excitement  which 
his  arrival  would  cause  in  Havre,  and 
which  would  of  course  echo  up  to  the 
Mignons.  Therefore,  in  his  role  of  a  man 
needing  rest,  he  did  not  leave  the  house. 


La  Briere  went  twice  to  walk  past  the 
Chalet,  though  always  with  a  sense  of 
despair,  for  he  feared  he  had  displeased 
Modeste,  and  the  future  seemed  to  him 
dark  with  clouds.  The  two  friends  came 
dow^n  to  dinner  on  Monday  dressed  for 
the  first  call,  which  would  be  the  most 
important  one  of  all.  La  Briere  wore 
the  same  clothes  he  had  so  carefully 
selected  for  the  famous  Sunday ;  but  he 
now  felt  like  the  satellite  of  a  planet,  and 
resigned  himself  to  the  uncertainties  of 
his  situation.  Canalis,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  carefully  attended  to  his 
black  coat,  his  orders,  and  all  those 
little  drawing-room  elegances,  which 
his  intimacy  with  the  Duchesse  de  Chau- 
lieu  and  the  fashionable  Avorld  of  the  fau- 
bourg had  brought  to  perfection.  He  had 
gone  into  the  minutias  of  dandyism,  while 
poor  La  Briere  was  about  to  present  him- 
self with  the  negligence  of  a  man  without 
hope.  Germain,  as  he  waited  at  dinner, 
could  not  help  smiling  to  himself  at  the 
contrast.  After  the  second  course,  how- 
ever, the  valet  came  in  with  a  diplomatic, 
or  rather,  an  uneasy  air. 

"  Does  Monsieur  le  Baron  know,"  he 
said  to  Canalis  in  a  low  voice,  "that 
Monsieur  the  Grand  Equerry  is  coming  to 
Graville  to  get  cured  of  the  same  illness 
which  has  brought  Monsieur  de  la  Briere 
and  Monsieur  le  Baron  to  the  seashore  ?  " 

"  What,  the  little  Due  d'Herouville?  " 
exclaimed  Canalis. 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Is  he  coming  for  Mademoiselle  de  la 
Bastie  ?  "  asked  La  Briere,  coloring. 

"  So  it  appears,  monsieur." 

"We  are  sold  !  "  cried  Canalis,  looking 
at  La  Biiere. 

"  Ah  !  "  retorted  Ernest  quickly,"  that 
is  the  first  time  you  have  said  *  we '  since 
we  left  Paris  :  it  has  been  '  I '  all  along." 

"You  understood  me,"  cried  Canalis, 
with  a  burst  of  laughter.  "  But  we  are 
not  in  a  position  to  struggle  against  a 
ducal  coronet,  nor  the  duke's  title,  nor 
against  the  waste  lands  which  the  Coun- 
cil of  State  have  just  granted,  on  my 
report,  to  the  house  of  Herouville." 

"His  grace,"  said  La  Briere,  with  a 
spice   of    malice    that   was    nevertheless 


416 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


serious,  "will  furnish  you  with  a  scrap 
of  compensation  in  the  person  of  his 
sister." 

Just  then  the  Comte  de  la  Bastie  was 
announced  ;  the  two  j'oung-  naen  rose  at 
once,  and  La  Briere  hastened  forward  to 
present  Canalis. 

"  I  wished  to  return  the  visit  that  j'ou 
paid  me  in  Paris,"  said  the  count  to  the 
young  lawyer,  "  and  I  knew  that  by  com- 
ing- here  I  should  have  the  pleasure  of 
meeting-  one  of  our  great  living  poets." 

"  Great ! — monsieur,"  replied  the  poet, 
smiling,  "  no  one  can  be  great  in  a  cent- 
ury prefaced  by  the  reign  of  a  Napoleon. 
In  the  first  place,  we  are  a  tribe  of  would- 
be  great  poets;  moreover,  second-rate 
talent  imitates  genius  nowadays,  and 
renders  real  distinction  impossible." 

"  Is  that  the  reason  you  have  thrown 
yourself  into  politics  ?  "  asked  the  count. 

"It  is  the  same  thing  in  this  sphere," 
said  the  poet;  "there  are  no  statesmen 
in  these  days,  onlj'  men  who  handle  events 
more  or  less.  Look  at  it,  monsieur;  under 
the  system  of  government  that  we  derive 
from  the  Charter,  which  makes  a  tax-list 
of  more  importance  than  a  coat-of-arms, 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  golid  except 
that  which  you  went  to  seek  in  China — 
wealth." 

Satisfied  with  himself  and  with  the 
impression  he  was  making  on  the  pro- 
spective father-in-law,  Canalis  turned  to 
Germain. 

"Serve  the  coffee  in  the  salon,"  he 
said,  inviting  Monsieur  de  la  Bastie  to 
leave  the  dining-room. 

"  I  thank  you  for  this  visit,  Monsieur 
le  Comte,"  said  La  Briere ;  "  it  saves  me 
from  the  embarrassment  of  presenting 
my  friend  to  you  in  your  own  house. 
With  a  kind  heart  you  have  also  a  quick 
mind." 

"Bah  !  the  readj'  wit  of  Provence,  that 
is  all,"  said. Charles  Mignon. 

"  Ah,  do  you  come  from  Provence  ?  " 
cried   Canalis. 

"You  must  pardon  my  friend,"  said 
La  Briere ;  "  he  has  not  studied,  as  I 
have,  the  history  of  La  Bastie." 

At  the  word  friend  Canalis  threw  a 
searching  glance  at  Ernest. 


"  If  your  health  will  permit,"  said  the 
count  to  the  poet,  "  I  shall  hope  to  re- 
ceive you  this  evening  luider  my  roof;  it 
will  be  a  day  to  mark  with  a  white  stone. 
Though  we  cannot  duly  receive  so  dis- 
tinguished a  man  in  our  little  house,  yet 
3'our  visit  will  gratify  the  impatience  of 
my  daughter,  whose  admiration  for  j^our 
poems  has  even  led  her  to  set  them  to 
music." 

"  You  have  something  better  than 
fame  in  your  house,"  said  Canalis  ;  "you 
have  beautj',  if  I  am  to  believe  Ernest." 

"  Yes,  a  good  daughter ;  but  you  will 
find  her  rather  countrified,"  said  Charles 
Mignon. 

"  A  country  girl  sought,  the3'  say,  by 
the  Due  d'Herouville,"  remarked  Cana- 
lis, dryly. 

"  Oh  !  "  replied  Monsieur  Mignon,  with 
the  perfidious  good -humor  of  a  Southern-  \ 
er,  "  I  leave  my  daughter  free.  Dukes, 
princes,  commoners  —  they  are  all  the 
same  to  me,  even  men  of  genius.  I  shall 
make  no  pledges,  and  whoever  my  ]yio- 
deste  chooses  will  be  my  son-in-law,  or 
rather  my  son,"  he  added,  looking  at  La 
Briere.  "  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Ma- 
dame de  la  Bastie  is  German.  She  has 
never  adopted  our  etiquette,  and  I  allow 
mj'self  to  be  led  by  her  and  my  daughter. 
I  have  always  preferred  to  sit  in  the  car- 
riage rather  than  on  the  box.  We  may 
make  a  joke  of  all  this  at  present,  for  we 
have  not  yet  seen  the  Due  d'Herouville, 
and  I  do  not  believe  in  marriages  ar- 
ranged by  proxy,  any  more  than  I  believe 
in  choosing  m^'  daughter's  husband." 

"That  declaration  is  equally  encourag- 
ing and  discouraging  to  two  young  men 
who  are  searching  for  the  philosopher's 
stone  of  happiness  in  marriage,"  said 
Canalis. 

"Don't  you  consider  it  useful,  neces- 
sary, and  even  politic  to  stipulate  for 
perfect  freedom  of  action  for  parents, 
daughters,  and  suitors  ?"  asked  Charles 
Mignon. 

Canalis,  at  a  sign  from  La  Briere,  kept 
silence.  The  conversation  presently  be- 
came unimportant,  and  after  a  few  turns 
round  the  garden  the  count  retired,  urging. 
a  visit  from  the  two  friends. 


MODESTE    MliJtNON. 


417 


"That's  our  dismissal,"  cried  Canalis  ; 
"  you  saw  it  as  plainly  as  I  did.  Well, 
in  liis  place,  I  should  not  hesitate  between 
the  g-rand  equerry  and  either  of  us,  charm- 
ing as  we  are." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  La  Briere. 
"  I  believe  tliat  frank  soldier  came  here 
to  satisfy  his  impatience  to  see  you,  and 
to  inform  us  of  his  neutrality  while  re- 
ceiving us  in  his  house.  Modeste,  in  love 
with  your  fame,  and  misled  bj'  my  per- 
son, stands,  as  it  were,  between  the  real 
and  the  ideal,  between  poetry  and  prose. 
I  am,  unfortunately,  the  prose." 

"Germain,"  s:i id  Canalis  to  the  valet, 
who  came  to  take  away  the  coffee,  "order 
the  carriage  in  half  an  hour.  We  will 
take  a  drive  before  going  to  the  Chalet." 


XVIIl. 

Thk  two  3'oung  men  were  equally  im- 
patient to  see  Modeste,  but  La  Briere 
dreaded  the  interview,  while  Canalis  ad- 
vanced to  it  with  a  confidence  full  of  self- 
conceit.  The  eagerness  with  which  La 
Briere  had  met  the  father,  and  the  flat- 
tery by  which  he  had  caressed  the  family 
pride  of  the  merchant,  showed  Canalis 
his  own  raaladroitness,  and  determined 
him  to  select  a  special  role.  The  great 
poet  resolved  to  pretend  indifference, 
though  all  the  while  displacing  his  se- 
ductive powers  ;  to  appear  to  disdain  the 
young  huh',  and  thus  pique  her  self-love. 
Trained  by  the  handsome  Duchesse  de 
Chaulieu,  he  was  bound  to  be  worthy  of 
his  reputation  as  a  man  who  knew  wo- 
men, when,  in  fact,  he  did  not  know  them 
at  all — which  is  often  the  case  with  those 
who  are  the  happy  Aictims  of  an  exclu- 
sive passion.  While  poor  Ernest,  silently 
ensconced  in  his  corner  of  the  caleche, 
gave  wa.y  to  the  terrors  of  genuine  love, 
and  foresaw  instinctivelj'  the  anger,  con- 
tempt, and  disdain  of  an  injured  and  of- 
fended young  girl,  Canalis  was  preparing 
himself,  not  less  silently,  like  an  actor 
making  ready  for  an  important  part  in  a 
new  play  ;  cei"tainl_y  neither  of  them  pre- 
sented the  appearance  of  a  happy  man. 
Important   interests   were   at  stake    for 

BALZA.C— N 


Canalis.  The  mere  suggestion  of  his  de- 
sire to  marry  would  bi'ing  about  a  rupt- 
ure of  the  friendship  which  had  bound 
him  for  the  last  ten  years  to  the  Duch- 
esse de  Chaulieu.  Though  he  had  given 
as  an  excuse  for  his  journey  the  common- 
place pretext  of  fatigue — in  which,  by- 
the-by,  women  never  believe,  even  when 
it  is  true — his  conscience  troubled  him 
somewhat ;  but  the  word  "  conscience  " 
seemed  so  Jesuitical  to  La  Briere  that  he 
shrugged  his  shoulders  when  the  poet 
mentioned  his  scruples. 

"Your  conscience,  my  friend,  strikes 
me  as  nothing  more  nor  les^  than  a  dread 
of  losing  the  pleasures  of  vanity  as  well 
as  some  very  real  advantages,  by  sacri- 
ficing the  affections  of  Madame  de  Chau- 
lieu ;  for,  if  you  succeed  with  Modeste, 
you  will  renounce  without  anj"^  regret 
the  wilted  aftermath  of  a  passion  that 
has  been  mown  and  well-raked  for  eight 
years.  If  you  simply  mean  that  you  are 
afraid  of  displeasing  your  protectress, 
should  she  find  out  the  object  of  your 
stay  here,  I  can  easily  believe  you.  To 
renounce  the  duchess  and  yet  not  succeed 
at  the  Chalet  is  too  heavy  a  risk.  You 
take  the  anxiety  of  this  alternative  for 
remorse." 

"  You  have  no  comprehension  of  feel- 
ings," said  the  poet,  irritably,  like  a  man 
who  hears  truth  when  he  expects  a  com- 
pliment. 

"  That  is  what  a  bigamist  should  tell 
the  jury,"  retorted  La  Briere,  laughing. 

This  epigram  made  another  disagree- 
able impression  on  Canalis.  He  began  to 
think  La  Briere  too  witty  and  independ- 
ent for  a  secretary. 

The  arrival  of  an  elegant  caleche, 
driven  by  a  coachman  in  the  Canalis 
liverj',  created  great  excitement  at  the 
Chalet,  for  the  two  suitors  were  expected, 
and  all  the  personages  of  this  history 
were  assembled  to  receive  them,  except 
the  duke  and  Butscha. 

"  Which  is  the  poet  ?  "  asked  Madame 
Latournelle  of  Dumay  in  the  embrasure  of 
a  window,  where  she  stationed  herself  as 
soon  as  she  heard  the  wheels. 

"  The  one  who  walks  like  a  drum-ma- 
jor," answered  the  lieutenant. 


418 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


"Ah  !  "  said  the  notary's  wife,  examin- 
ing Canalis,  who  was  walking-  like  a  man 
who  knows  he  is  being-  looked  at.  Al- 
though too  severe,  Dumay's  criticism  had 
a  certain  amount  of  justice.  The  fault  lay 
with  the  great  lady  who  flattered  him  in- 
cessantly and  spoiled  him,  as  all  women 
older  than  their  adorers  invariably  spoil 
and  flatter  them  ;  Canalis  in  his  moral 
being  was  a  sort  of  Narcissus.  When  a 
woman  of  a  certain  age  wishes  to  attach 
a  man  forever,  she  begins  by  deifying  his 
defects,  so  as  to  render  all  rivalry  impos- 
sible ;  for  a  rival  is  never,  at  the  first  ap- 
proach, aware  of  the  superfine  flattery  to 
which  the  man  becomes  so  easily  accus- 
tomed. Coxcombs  are  the  product  of  this 
feminine  maneuver,  when  they  are  not 
fops  by  nature.  Canalis,  chosen  when 
young  by  the  handsome  duchess,  vindi- 
cated his  affectations  to  his  own  mind 
by  telling  himself  that  they  pleased  that 
grande  dame,  whose  taste  was  law.  Such 
shades  of  character  may  be  excessively 
faint,  but  it  is  not  impossible  to  point 
them  out.  For  instance,  Melchior  pos- 
sessed a  talent  for  reading  which  was 
greatly  admired,  and  much  injudicious 
praise  had  given  him  a  habit  of  exag-gera- 
tion,  which  neitlier  poets  nor  actors  were 
willing  to  check,  and  which  made  people 
say  of  him  (always  through  De  Marsaj') 
that  he  no  long-er  declaimed,  he  bellowed 
his  verses  ;  lengthening  the  sounds  that 
he  might  listen  to  himself.  In  the  slang- 
of  the  green-room,  Canalis  "  dragg-ed  the 
time."  He  was  fond  of  exchanging  ques- 
tioning glances  with  his  hearers,  throwing- 
himself  into  postures  of  self-complacency 
and  practicing  those  tricks  of  demeanor 
which  actors  call  balangoires — the  pict- 
uresque phrase  of  an  artistic  people.  Ca- 
nalis had  his  imitators,  and  was  the  head 
of  a  school  of  his  kind.  This  habit  of  de-- 
clamatory  chanting  had  slightly  affected 
his  conversation,  as  we  have  seen  in  his 
interview  with  Dumaj\  The  moment  the 
mind  becomes  ultra-coquettish  the  man- 
ners follow  suit,  and  the  great  poet  ended 
by  stepping  rhythmicallj%  inventing  at- 
titudes, looking  furtively  at  himself  in 
mirrors,  and  suiting  his  discourse  to  the 
particular  pose  which  he  happened  to  have 


taken  up.  He  was  so  preoccupied  with 
the  effect  he  wished  to  produce,  that  a 
practical  joker,  Blondet,  had  bet  once  or 
twice,  and  won  the  wager,  that  he  could 
disconcert  him  at  any  moment  by  merely 
looking  fixedly  at  his  hair,  or  his  boots, 
or  his  coat-tails. 

These  graces,  which  started  in  life  with 
a  passport  of  flowery  youth,  now  seemed 
all  the  more  wornout  because  Melchior 
himself  was  waning.  Life  in  the  world  of 
fashion  is  quite  as  exhausting  to  men  as 
it  is  to  women,  and  perhaps  the  twenty 
j'ears  by  which  the  duchess  exceeded  Ca- 
nalis's  age,  weighed  more  heavily  upon 
him  than  upon  her  ;  for  to  the  eyes  of  the 
world  she  was  always  handsome — with- 
out rouge,  without  wrinkles,  and  without 
heart.  Alas  !  neither  men  nor  women 
have  friends  who  are  friendly  enough  to 
warn  them  of  the  moment  when  the  fra- 
grance of  their  modesty  grows  stale,  when 
a  caressing  glance  is  but  a  tradition  of 
the  stage,  when  the  expression  of  the  face 
changes  from  sentiment  to  sentimental- 
ity, and  the  artifices  of  the  mind  show 
their  rust3^  edges.  Genius  alone  renews 
its  skin  like  a  snake  ;  and  in  the  matter 
of  charm,  as  in  everything  else,  it  is 
only  the  heart  that  never  grows  old. 
Peoi^le  who  have  hearts  are  simple  in 
all  things.  Now  Canalis,  as  we  know, 
had  a  shriveled  heart.  He  misused  the 
beauty  of  his  glance  b\'  giving  it,  with- 
out adequate  reason,  the  fixity  that 
comes  to  the  eyes  in  meditation.  In 
short,  applause  was  to  him  a  business, 
in  which  he  demanded  too  much  profit. 
His  style  of  paying  compliments,  charm- 
ing to  superficial  people,  seemed  insulting 
to  others  of  more  delicacy,  hy  its  triteness 
and  the  cool  assurance  of  its  flattery, 
which  betrayed  a  i^urpose.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Melchior  lied  like  a  coui'tier.  He 
remarked  without  blushing  to  the  Due 
de  Chaulieu,  who  made  no  impression 
whatever  when  he  was  obliged  to  ad- 
dress the  Chamber  as  minister  of  foreign 
affairs,  "Your  excellency  was  truly 
sublime!"  Many  men  like  Canalis  are 
purged  of  their  affectations  by  the  ad- 
ministration of  non-success  in  little  doses. 

These    defects,    slight    in    the    gilded 


MODESTE    MIGNOJS. 


419 


salons  of  the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain, 
where  every  one  contributes  his  or  lier 
quota  of  absurdity,  and  where  these 
particular  forms  of  exaggerated  speech 
and  affected  diction — magniloquence,  if 
you  please  to  call  it  so — are  framed  by 
excessive  luxury  and  sumptuous  toilets, 
which  are  to  some  extent  their  excuse, 
were  certain  to  be  far  more  noticed  in  the 
provinces,  whose  own  absurdities  are  of  a 
totally  different  type.  Canalis,  by  nat- 
ure oV'Crstrained  and  artificial,  could  not 
change  his  form ;  he  had  had  time  to 
grow  stiff  in  the  mold  into  which  the 
duchess  had  cast  him  ;  moreover,  he  was 
thoroughly  Parisian,  or,  if  you  prefer  it, 
truly  Frencli.  The  Parisian  is  amazed 
that  everything  everj^where  is  not  as 
it  is  in  Pans  ;  the  Frenchman,  as  it  is 
in  France.  Good  taste  consists  in  con- 
forming to  the  customs  of  foreigners 
without  losing  too  much  of  our  own 
charactei" — as  did  Alcibiades,  that  model 
of  a  gentleman.  True  grace  is  elastic ; 
it  lends  itself  to  all  circumstances ;  it  is  in 
harmony  with  all  social  centers ;  it  wears 
a  robe  of  simple  material  in  the  streets, 
noticeable  only  by  its  cut,  in  preference 
to  the  feathers  and  brilliant  flounces  of 
middle-class  vulgarity.  Now  Canalis, 
counseled  \>y  a  woman  who  cared  for 
him  more  on  her  own  account  than  on 
his,  wislied  to  lay  down  the  law  and  be, 
everywhere,  such  as  he  himself  might 
see  fit  to  be.  He  believed  he  carried  his 
own  public  with  him  wherever  he  wenli — 
an  error  shared  by  several  of  the  great 
men  of  Paris. 

While  the  poet  made  a  studied  entrance 
into  the  salon  of  the  Chalet,  La  Briere 
slipped  in  behind  him  like  a  pupp}'  who 
expects  a  whipping. 

•'  Ah  !  there  is  my  soldier,"  said  Cana- 
lis, perceiving  Duraay,  after  addressing 
a  compliment  to  Madame  Mignon,  and 
bowing  to  the  other  ladies.  "  Your 
anxieties  are  relieved,  are  they  not  ? " 
he  said,  offering  his  hand  effusivety  ;  •'•  I 
compreliend  them  to  their  fullest  extent 
after  seeing  mademoiselle.  I  spoke  to  you 
of  terrestrial  creatures,  not  of  angels." 

All  present  seemed  by  their  attitudes  to 
ask  the  meaning  of  this  speech. 


"  I  .shall  alwaj-s  consider  it  a  triumph," 
resumed  the  poet,  observing  thut  every 
body  wished  for  an  explanation,  "to  have 
stirred  to  emotion  one  of  those  men  of 
iron  whom  Napoleon  had  the  eye  to  find 
and  make  the  supporting  piles  on  which 
he  tried  to  build  an  empire,  too  colossal 
to  be  lasting  :  for  such  structures  time 
alone  is  the  cement.  But  this  triumph — 
why  should  I  be  proud  of  it  ? — I  count  for 
nothing.  It  was  the  triumph  of  ideas 
over  facts.  Your  battles,  my  dear  Mon- 
sieur Dumay,  your  heroic  charges.  Mon- 
sieur le  Comte,  war  itself,  was  the  form  in 
which  Napoleon's  idea  clothed  itself.  Of 
all  these  things,  what  remains  ?  The  sod 
that  covers  them  knows  nothing;  har- 
vests do  not  betray  their  hiding  place ; 
were  it  not  for  the  historian,  the  writer, 
futurity  would  have  no  knowledge  of 
those  heroic  days.  Thei-efore  your  fifteen 
years  of  war  are  now  ideas  and  nothing 
more ;  that  which  will  preserve  the  Em- 
pire forever  will  be  the  poem  that  the 
poets  make  of  them.  A  nation  that  can 
win  such  battles  must  know  how  to  sing 
them." 

Canalis  paused,  to  gather  by  a  glance 
that  ran  round  the  circle  the  tribute  of 
amazement  which  he  expected  of  provin- 
cials. 

"You  cannot  imagine,  monsieur,  the 
regret  I  feel  at  not  seeing  you,"  said 
Madame  Mignon;  "but  you  compensate 
me  with  the  pleasure  of  hearing  you." 

Modeste,  determined  to  think  Canalis 
sublime,  sat  motionless  with  amazement ; 
the  embroidery  slipped  from  her  fingers, 
which  held  it  only  by  the  needleful  of 
thread. 

"Modeste,  this  is  Monsieur  Ernest  de 
la  Briere.  Monsieur  Ernest,  my  daugh- 
ter," said  the  count,  thinking  the  secre- 
tary too  much  in  the  background. 

The  young  girl  bowed  coldly,  giving 
Ernest  a  glance  which  was  meant  to 
prove  to  every  one  present  that  she  saw 
him  for  the  flret  time. 

"Pai'don  me,  monsieur,"  she  said  with- 
out blushing;  "the  great  admiration  I 
feel  for  the  greatest  of  our  poets  is,  in 
the  eyes  of  my  friends,  a  sufficient  excuse 
for  having  seen  onlv  him." 


420 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


The  pure,  fresh  voice,  with  accents  hke 
the  celebrated  ones  of  Mademoiselle  Mars, 
charmed  the  poor  secretary,  already  daz- 
zled by  Modestc's  beauty,  and  in  his  sud- 
den surprise  he  answered  by  a  phrase 
that  would  have  been  sublime,  had  it  been 
true. 

"Ho  is  my  friend,"  he  said. 

"Ah,  then  you  pardon  me,"  she  replied. 

"  He  is  more  than  a  friend,"  cried  Ca- 
nalis,  taking  Ernest  by  the  shoulder  and 
leanins-  upon  it  like  Alexander  on  Hephses- 
tion,  -'we  love  each  other  as  though  we 
were  brothers — " 

Madame  Latournelle  cut  short  the  poet's 
speech  by  pointing  to  Ernest  and  saying 
aloud  to  her  husband,  "Surely  that  is  the 
gentleman  we  saw  at  church." 

"Why  not?"  said  Charles  Mignon 
quickly,  observing  that  Ernest  reddened. 

Modeste  coldly  took  up  her  embroidery. 

"  Madame  may  be  right ;  I  have  been 
twice  in  Havre  lately,"  replied  La  Briere, 
sitting  down  by  Dumaj'. 

Canalis,  charmed  with  Modeste's  beau- 
ty, mistook  the  admiration  she  expressed, 
and  flattered  himself  he  had  succeeded  in 
producing  his  desired  effects. 

"  I  should  think  that  a  man  of  genius 
had  no  heart,  if  he  had  no  devoted  friend 
near  him,"  said  Modeste,  to  pick  up  the 
conversation  interrupted  hy  Madame  La- 
tournelle's  awkwardness. 

"Mademoiselle,Ernest's  devotion  makes 
me  almost  th  ink  myself  worth  something, " 
said  Canalis:  "for  my  dear  Py lades  is 
full  of  talent ;  he  was  the  right  hand  of 
the  greatest  minister  we  have  had  since 
the  peace.  Though  he  holds  a  fine  posi- 
tion, he  is  good  enough  to  be  my  tutor 
in  the  science  of  politics;  he  teaches  me 
to  conduct  affairs  and  feeds  me  with  his 
experience,  when  all  the  while  he  might 
aspire  to  a  much  better  situation.  Oh ! 
he  is  worth  far  more  than  I."  At  a 
gesture  from  Modeste  he  continued  grace- 
fully :  "  Yes,  the  poetrj'^  that  I  express  he 
carries  in  his  heart ;  and  if  I  speak  thus 
openly  before  him  it  is  because  he  has  the 
modesty  of  a  nun." 

"Enough,  oh,  enough!"  cried  La 
Briere,  who  hardly  knew  which  way  to 
look.     "  My  dear  Canalis,  you  remind  me 


of  a  mother  who  is  seeking  to  marry  off 
her  daughter." 

"How  is  it,  monsieur,"  said  Charles 
Mignon,  addressing  Canalis,  "that  you 
can  even  think  of  becoming  a  political 
character?  " 

"  It  is  abdication,"  said  Modeste,  "  for 
a  poet ;  politics  are  the  resource  of  mat- 
ter-of-fact men." 

"Ah,  mademoiselle,  the  rostrum  is  to- 
day the  greatest  theater  of  the  world  ;  it 
has  replaced  the  tournaments  of  chivalry; 
it  is  now  the  meeting-place  for  all  intel- 
lects, just  as  the  armj'  has  been  the  rally- 
ing-point  of  courage." 

Canalis  stuck  spurs  into  his  charger 
and  talked  for  ten  minutes  on  political 
life :  "  Poetry  was  but  a  preface  to  the 
statesman."  "To-day  the  orator  has 
become  a  sublime  reasoner,  the  shepherd 
of  ideas."  "Although  a  poet  may  point 
the  way  for  nations  or  individuals,  can  he 
ever  therefore  cease  to  be  himself  ?  "  He 
quoted  Chateaubriand  and  declared  he 
would  one  day  be  greater  on  the  political 
side  than  on  the  literary.  "  The  forum 
of  France  was  to  be  the  pharos  of  human- 
ity." "Oral  battles  supplanted  fields  of 
battle  :  there  were  sessions  of  the  Cham- 
ber finer  than  any  Austerlitz,  and  orators 
were  seen  to  be  as  lofty  as  generals  ;  they 
spent  their  lives,  their  courage,  their 
strength,  as  freely  as  those  who  Avent 
to  war."  "  Speech  was  sui'ely  one  of 
the  most  prodigal  wastes  of  the  vital 
fluid  that  man  had  ever  known,"  etc. 

This  improvisation  of  modern  common- 
places, clothed  in  sonorous  phrases  and 
newly  invented  words,  and  intended  to 
prove  that  the  Comte  de  Canalis  was  be- 
coming one  of  the  glories  of  the  French 
Government,  made  a  deep  impression 
upon  the  notary  and  Gobenheim,  and 
upon  Madame  Latournelle  and  Madame 
Mignon.  Modeste  looked  as  though  she 
were  at  the  theater,  in  an  attitude  of 
enthusiasm  for  an  actor — very  much  like 
that  of  Ernest  toward  herself ;  for  though 
the  secretary  knew  nil  these  high-sound- 
ing phrases  by  heart,  he  listened  through 
the  eyes,  as  it  were,  of  the  young  girl, 
and  grew  more  and  more  madly  in  love 
with  her.    To  this  true  lover,  Modeste 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


421 


was  eclipsing  all  the  Modestes  whom  he 
had  created  as  he  read  lier  letters  and 
answered  them. 

This  visit,  whose  length  was  predeter- 
mined by  Canalis,  careful  not  to  allow  Ins 
admirers  a  chance  to  i;et  surfeited,  endeil 
by  an  invitation  to  dinner  on  the  follow- 
ing- Monday. 

"We  shall  not  be  at  the  Chalet,"  said 
the  Comte  de  la  Bastic.  "  Dinnay  Avill 
have  sole  possession  of  it.  I  return  to 
the  villa,  having  bouglit  it  back  under 
a  deed  of  redemption  wiihiu  six  months, 
which  I  have  to-day  signed  with  Mon- 
sieur Vilquin."' 

'■I  hope,"  said  Duuiay,  "that  Vilquin 
will  not  be  able  to  return  you  the  sum  you 
have  just  lent  liim,  and  that  the  villa  will 
remain  yours."' 

"  It  is  an  abode  in  keeping  with  j-our 
fortune,"  said  Canalis. 

"■  You  mean  the  fortune  that  I  am  sup- 
posed to  have,"  replied  Charles  Mignon, 
hastily-. 

"It  would  be  too  sad,"  said  Canalis, 
turning  to  ]\Iodeste  with  a  charming  little 
bow,  "if  this  Madonna  were  not  framed 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  her  divine  per- 
fections." 

That  was  the  only  thing  Canalis  said  to 
Modesto.  He  affected  not  to  look  at  her, 
and  behaved  like  a  man  to  whom  all  idea 
of  marriage  was  interdicted. 

"Ah  !  my  dear  Madame  Mignon,"  cried 
the  notary's  wife,  as  soon  as  the  gravel 
was  heard  to  grit  under  the  feet  of  the 
Parisians,  "  what  an  intellect !  " 

"Is  he  rich? — that  is  the  question," 
said  Gobenheim. 

Modeste  was  at  the  wandow,  not  losing 
a  single  movement  of  the  great  poet,  and 
paying  no  attention  to  his  companion. 
When  Monsieur  ]\Iignon  returned  to  the 
salon,  and  Modeste,  having  received  a 
last  bow  from  the  two  friends  as  the  car- 
riage turned,  went  back  to  her  seat,  a 
weight^'  discussion  took  place,  such  as 
provincials  invariably  hold  over  Parisians 
after  a  first  interview.  Gobenheim  re- 
peated his  phrase,  "Is  he  rich?"  as  a 
chorus  to  the  songs  of  praise  sung  by 
Madame  Latouruelle,  Modeste,  and  her 
mother. 


"Rich  !"  exclaimed  Modeste;  "what, 
can  that  sig-nify  !  Do  you  not  see  that 
Monsieur  de  Canalis  is  one  of  those  men 
who  are  destined  to  occupy  the  highest 
places  in  the  State  ?  He  has  more  than 
fortune;  he  possesses  that  which  gains 
fortune." 

"■  He  will  be  a  minister  or  an  embas- 
sador," said  Monsieur  Mignon. 

"  That  won't  hinder  tax-payers  from 
having  to  pay  the  costs  of  his  funeral," 
remarked  the  notary. 

"  How  so  ?  "  asked  Charles  Mignon. 

"  He  strikes  me  as  a  man  who  will 
waste  all  the  fortunes  with  whose  gifts 
Mademoiselle  Modeste  so  liberally  endows 
him,"  answered  Latournelle. 

"Modeste  can't  avoid  being  liberal  to 
a  poet  who  called  her  a  Madonna,"  said 
Dumay,  sneeringh'.  He  was  faithful  to 
the  repulsion  with  which  Canalis  had  in- 
spired him. 

Gobenheina  arranged  the  whist-table 
with  all  the  more  persistency  because, 
since  the  return  of  Monsieur  Mignon. 
Latournelle  and  Dumay  had  allowed 
themselves  to  play  for  ten  sous   points. 

"Well,  my  little  darling,"  said  the 
father  to  the  daughter  in  the  embrasure 
of  a  window,  "confess  that  papa  thinks 
of  eveiything.  If  you  send  j'our  orders 
this  evening  to  your  former  dressmaker 
in  Paris,  and  all  your  other  furnishing 
people,  you  shall  show  yourself  eight 
days  hence  in  all  the  splendor  of  an 
heiress.  Meantime  we  will  install  our- 
selves in  the  villa.  You  already  have  a 
pretty  horse  ;  remember  to  order  a  habit ; 
you  owe  that  amount  of  civility  to  the 
grand  equerry." 

"All  the  more  because  there  will  be 
a  number  of  us  to  ride,"  said  Modeste, 
whose  cheeks  were  regaining  the  hue  of 
health. 

"  The  secretary  did  not  say  much,"  re- 
marked Madame  Mignon.      • 

"He  is  a  little  fool,"  said  Madame  La- 
tournelle ;  "the  poet  had  an  attentive 
word  for  everybody.  He  thanked  Mon- 
sieur Latournelle  for  his  help  in  choosing 
the  house  ;  and  said  to  me  that  it  seemed 
as  if  had  consulted  a  woman  of  taste. 
But  the  other  looked  as  gloomy  as  a  Span- 


422 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


iard,  and  kept  his  cj-es  fixed  on  Modesto 
as  llioug-h  he  would  like  to  swallow  her 
whole.  If  he  had  looked  at  me  I  should 
have  been  afraid  of  him." 

"He  had  a  pleasant  voice,"  said  Ma- 
dame Mignon. 

"  No  doubt  he  came  to  Havre  to  inquire 
about  the  Mignons  in  the  interests  of  his 
friend  the  poet,"  said  Modeste,  looking 
furtively  at  her  father.  "It  was  cer- 
tainly he  whom  we  saw  in  church." 

Madame  Dumay  and  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Latournelle  accepted  this  as  the 
natural  explanation  of  Ernest's  joui-ney. 


XIX. 


"Do  you  know,  Ernest,"  cried  Canalis, 
when  thej^  had  driven  a  short  distance 
from  the  house,  "  I  have  never  seen  a 
marriageable  woman  in  society  in  Paris 
who  compares  with  that  adorable  girl." 

"Ah,  that  ends  it!"  replied  Ernest, 
bitterly.  "She  loves  you,  or  she  will 
love  you  if  you  desire  it.  Your  fame  won 
half  the  battle.  You  will  have  every- 
thing your  own  way.  You  shall  go  there 
alone  in  future.  Modeste  despises  me ; 
she  is  right ;  and  I  don't  see  an3'  reason 
why  I  should  condemn  mj'self  to  the  tort- 
ure of  seeing,  admiring,  desiring  and 
adoring  that  which  I  can  never  possess." 

After  a  few  consoling  remarks,  dashed 
with  his  own  satisfaction  at  having  made 
a  new  version  of  Csesar's  phrase,  Canalis 
confided  to  him  a  desire  to  break  with  the 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu.  La  Briere,  totally 
unable  to  keep  up  the  conversation,  made 
the  beauty  of  the  night  an  excuse  to  be 
set  down,  and  then  rushed,  like  one  pos- 
sessed, to  the  seashore,  where  he  stayed 
till  past  ten,  half  crazy,  walking  liurriedly 
up  and  down,  talking  aloud  in  broken  sen- 
tences, standing  still  or  sitting  down, 
without  noticing  the  uneasiness  which  he 
was  giving  two  custom-house  officers  who 
Avere  on  the  watch.  After  loving  Mo- 
deste's  wit  and  intellect  and  her  aggres- 
sive frankness,  he  now  joined  adoration 
of  her  beauty — that  is  to  saj',  love  with- 
out reason,  love  inexplicable — to  all  the 


other  reasons  which  had  drawn  him,  ten 
daj-s  before,  to  the  church  in  Havre. 

He  returned  to  the  Chalet,  where  the 
Pyrenees  hounds  barked  at  him  till  he 
was  forced  to  relinquish  the  pleasure  of 
gazing  at  Modeste's  windows.  In  love, 
such  things  are  of  no  niore  account  to  the 
lover  than  the  work  which  is  covered  by 
the  last  layer  of  color  is  to  an  artist ;  yet 
out  of  them  arise  the  great  painter  and 
the  true  lover  whom  the  woman  and  the 
public  end,  often  too  late,  by  adoring. 

"Well,  then!"  he  cried  aloud,  "I  will 
sta^',  I  will  suffer,  I  will  love  her  for  my- 
self alone,  egotistically.  Modeste  shall 
be  my  sun,  my  life  ;  I  will  breathe  with 
her  breath,  rejoice  in  her  joj'S  and  bear 
her  griefs,  even  were  she  the  wife  of  that 
egoist,  Canalis." 

"  Is  that  what  love  is,  monsieur  ?  "  said 
a  voice  which  came  from  a  shrub  "by  the 
side  of  the  road.  "Ha,  ha,  so  all  the 
world  is  in  love  with  Mademoiselle  de  la 
Bastie?" 

And  Butscha  suddenly  appeared  and 
looked  at  La  Briere.  La  Briere  checked 
his  anger  when,  by  the  light  of  the  moon, 
he  saw  the  dwarf,  and  he  made  a  few 
steps  without  replying. 

"Soldiers  who  serve  in  the  same  com- 
pany ought  to  be  better  comrades  than 
that,"  remarked  Butscha.  "You  don't 
love  Canalis;  neither  do  I." 

"He  is  ray  friend,"  replied  Ernest. 

"  Ha,  you  are  the  little  secretary  ^  " 

"You  are  to  know,  monsieur,  that  I  am 
no  man's  secretary.  I  have  the  honor  to 
be  counsel  to  one  of  the  supreme  courts  of 
this  kingdom." 

"I  have  the  honor  to  salute  Monsieur 
de  la  Briere,"  said  Butsclia.  "I  myself 
have  the  honor  to  be  head  clerk  to  La- 
tournelle, chief  councilor  of  Havre,  and 
my  position  is  a  better  one  than  j-ours. 
Yes,  I  have  had  the  happiness  of  seeing 
Mademoiselle  Modeste  de  la  Bastie  nearly 
cYdvy  evening  for  the  last  four  years,  and 
I  expect  to  live  near  her,  as  a  king's  ser- 
vant lives  in  the  Tuileries.  If  they  offered 
me  the  throne  of  Russia  I  should  answer, 
'  I  love  the  sun  too  well.'  Isn't  that  tell- 
ing you,  monsieur,  that  I  care  more  for 
her  than  for  myself,  in  all  honor  ?  Do  you 


MUDESTE    MIGSON. 


423 


believe  that  the  proud  Dnchesse  do  Chau- 
lieu  will  cast  a  favorable  eye  on  the  hap- 
piness of  Madame  de  Canalis,  since  her 
Avaiting- woman,  who  is  in  love  with  Mon- 
sieur Germain,  already  uneasy  at  that 
charming'  valet's  absence  in  Havre,  has 
complained  to  her  mistress  while  brush- 
ing' her  hair — " 

•'  How  do  you  know  all  this  ?  "  said  La 
Briere,  interrupting'  Butscha. 

"  In  the  first  place,  I  am  clerk  to  a  no- 
tary," answered  Butscha.  "But  haven't 
you  seen  my  hump  ?  It  is  full  of  resources, 
monsieur.  I  have  made  myself  cousin  to 
Mademoiselle  Philoxene  Jacmin,  born  at 
Honfleur,  where  my  mother  was  born,  a 
Jacmin — there  are  eleven  branches  of  the 
Jacmins  at  Honfleur.  So  my  cousin  Philo- 
xene, enticed  by  the  bait  of  a  highlj' 
improbable  fortune,  has  told  me  a  good 
many  things." 

•'The  duchess  is  vindictive?"  said  La 
Briere. 

"  Vindictive  as  a  queen,  Philoxene  says ; 
she  has  never  yet  forgiven  the  duke  for 
being  nothing  more  than  her  husband," 
replied  Butscha.  "She  hates  as  she 
loves.  I  know  all  about  her  character, 
her  tastes,  her  toilet,  her  religion,  and 
her  meannesses ;  for  Philoxene  stripped 
her  for  me,  soul  and  corset.  I  went  to 
the  opera  expressly' to  see  her,  and  I  didn't 
grudge  the  ten  francs  it  cost  me — I  don't 
mean  the  play.  If  my  imag'inarj^  cousin 
had  not  told  me  the  duchess  had  seen  her 
fifty  summers,  I  should  have  thought  I 
was  overgenerous  in  giving  her  thirtj'- ; 
she  has  never  known"  a  winter,  that 
duchess !  " 

"Yes,"  said  La  Briere,  "  she  isacameo 
— preserved  because  it  is  stone.  Canalis 
would  be  in  a  bad  way  if  the  duchess  were 
to  find  out  what  he  is  doing  here ;  and  I 
hope,  monsieur,  that  you  will  go  no 
further  in  this  business  of  spying,  which 
is  unworthy  of  an  honest  man." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Butscha,  proudly; 
"  for  me  Modesto  is  my  country'.  I  do 
not  spy ;  I  foresee.  The  duchess  will 
come  here  if  it  is  desirable,  or  she  will 
stay  tranquilly  where  she  is,  according 
to  what  I  judge  best." 

"You?" 


a  T   >> 

"  And  how,  praj-  ?  " 

"  Ha,  that's  it  I  "  said  the  little  hunch- 
back, plucking  a  blade  of  grass.  "See 
hei'e  !  this  herb  believes  that  men  build 
palaces  for  it  to  grow  in ;  it  wedges  its 
way  between  the  closest  blocks  of  marble, 
and  brings  them  down,  just  as  the  people, 
forced  into  the  edifice  of  feudality,  have 
brought  it  to  the  ground.  The  power  of 
the  feeble  life  that  can  creep  everywhere 
is  greater  than  that  of  the  mighty  who 
rely  upon  their  cannons.  I  am  one  of 
three  who  have  sworn  that  Modeste  shall 
be  happ3',  and  we  would  sell  our  honor  for 
her.  Adieu,  monsieur.  If  you  truly  love 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie,  forget  this 
conversation  and  shake  hands  with -me, 
for  I  think  you've  got  a  heart.  I  longed 
to  see  the  Chalet,  and  I  got  here  just  as 
she  was  putting  out  her  light.  I  saw  the 
dogs  rush  at  you,  and  I  overheard  yowv 
words,  and  that  is  why  I  take  the  liberty 
of  saying  we  serve  in  the  same  regiment 
— that  of  loyal  devotion." 

"Monsieur,"  said  La  Briere,  wringing 
the  hunchback's  hand,  "would  you  have 
the  friendliness  to  tell  me  if  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  ever  loved  any  one  with  love  be- 
fore she  wrote  to  Canalis  ?  " 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Butscha,  in  an  al- 
tered voice  ;  "'  that  thought  is  an  insult. 
And  even  now,  who  knows  if  she  really 
loves  ?  does  she  know  herself  ?  She  is 
enamored  of  genius,  of  the  soul  of  that 
seller  of  verses,  that  literary  quack ;  but 
she  will  study  him,  we  shall  all  study 
him  ;  and  I  know  how  to  make  the  man's 
real  character  peep  out  from  under  that 
turtle-shell  of  fine  manners — we'll  soon 
see  the  petty  little  head  of  his  ambition 
and  his  vanity  !  "  cried  Butscha,  rubbing 
his  hands.  "So,  unless  mademoiselle  is 
desperatelj'  taken  with  him — " 

"  Oh  !  she  was  seized  with  admiration 
when  she  saw  him,  as  if  he  were  some- 
thing marvelous,"  exclaimed  La  Briere, 
letting  the  secret  of  his  jealousy  escape 
him. 

•'If  he  is  a  loyal,  honest  fellow,  and  if 
he  loves  her ;  if  he  is  -worthy  of  her ;  if  he 
renounces  his  duchess,"  said  Butscha — 
"  then  I'll  manage  the  duchess !     Here, 


424 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


my  dear  sir,  take  tlris  road,  and  you  will 
get  home  in  ten  minutes." 

Butscha  almost  immediately  turned 
back  and  hailed  poor  Ernest,  who,  as  a 
true  lover,  would  gladly  have  stayed 
there  all  night  talking  of  Modeste. 

'•  Monsieur,"  said  Butscha,  "  I  have  not 
yet  had  the  honor  of  seeing  our  great  poet. 
I  am  xevy  curious  to  observe  that  magnif- 
icent phenomenon  in  the  exercise  of  his 
functions.  Do  me  the  favor  to  bring  him 
to  the  Chalet  to-morrow  evening,  and 
stay  as  long  as  possible ;  for  it  takes 
more  than  an  hour  for  a  man  to  show 
himself  for  what  he  is.  I  shall  bo  tlie 
first  to  see  if  he  loves,  if  he  can  love, 
or  if  he  ever  will  love  Mademoiselle 
Modeste." 

"You  are  very  young  to — " 

"  —  to  be  a  professor,"  said  Butscha, 
interrupting  La  Briere.  '•  Ha,  monsieur, 
deformed  folks  are  all  born  a  hundred 
years  old.  And  besides,  a  sick  man  who 
has  long  been  sick  knows  more  than  his 
doctor ;  he  knows  the  disease,  and  that  is 
more  than  can  always  be  said  even  for 
the  best  of  doctors.  Well,  so  it  is  with  a 
man  who  cherishes  a  woman  in  his  heart, 
when  the  woman  is  forced  to  disdain  him 
for  his  ugliness  or  his  deformity ;  he  ends 
by  knowing  so  much  of  love  that  he  be- 
comes seductive,  just  as  the  sick  man 
recovers  his  health ;  stupidity  alone  is 
incurable.  I  have  had  neither  father 
nor  mother  since  I  was  six  j'ears  old ;  I 
am  now  twenty-five.  Public  charity  has 
been  my  mother,  the  procureur  du  roi  my 
father.  Oh  !  don't  be  troubled,"  he  add- 
ed, seeing  Ernest's  gesture ;  "  I  am  much 
more  lively  than  my  situation.  Well,  for 
the  last  six  years,  ever  since  a  woman's 
insolent  eye  first  told  me  I  had  no  right 
to  love,  I  do  love,  and  I  studj--  women.  I 
began  with  the  ugly  ones,  for  it  is  best  to 
take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  So  I  took  my 
master's  wife,  who  has  certainly  been  an 
angel  to  me,  for  my  first  study.  Perhaps 
I  did  wrong ;  but  I  couldn't  help  it.  I 
passed  her  through  my  alembic  and  what 
did  I  find  ?  this  thought,  crouching  at 
the  bottom  of  her  heart,  '  I  am  not  so 
ugly  as  they  think  me ; '  and  if  a  man 
were  to  work  upon  that  thought  he  could 


bring  her  to  the  edge  of  an  abyss,  pious 
as  she  is." 

'■'And  have  you  .studied  Modeste?" 

"1  thought  I  told  you,"  replied  But- 
scha, "  that  my  life  belongs  to  her,  just 
as  France  belongs  to  the  king.  Do  you 
now  understand  what  you  called  my 
sp\ing  in  Paris  ?  No  one  but  me  really- 
knows  what  nobility,  what  pride,  what 
devotion,  what  mysterious  grace,  what 
unwearying  kindness,  what  true  religion, 
gayety,  wit,  delicacy,  knowledge,  and 
courtesy  there  are  in  the  soul  and  in  the 
heart  of  that  adorable  creature  ! " 

Butscha  drew  out  his  handkerchief  and 
wiped  his  eyes,  and  La  Briere  pressed  his 
hand  earnestly. 

'•  I  live  in  the  sunshine  of  her  existence  ; 
it  comes  from  her,  it  is  absorbed  in  me ; 
that  is  how  we  are  united — as  nature  is 
to  God,  by  the  Light  and  the  Word. 
Adieu,  monsieur ;  I  have  never  talked  so 
much  in  my  life ;  but  seeing  you  beneath 
her  windows,  I  knew  that  you  loved  her 
as  I  love  her." 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer  Butscha 
quitted  the  poor  lover,  whose  heart  had 
been  comforted  by  his  words.  Ernest  re- 
solved to  make  a  friend  of  him,  not  sus- 
pecting that  the  chief  object  of  the  clerk's 
loquacity  was  to  gain  communication  with 
some  one  connected  with  Canalis.  Ernest 
was  rock  3d  to  sleep  that  night  by  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  thoughts  and  resolutions  and 
plans  for  his  future  conduct,  while  Canalis 
slept  the  sleep  of  the  conqueror,  which  is 
the  sweetest  of  slumbers  after  that  of  the 
just. 

At  breakfast  the  friends  agreed  to 
spend  the  evening  of  the  following  daj'  at 
the  Chalet  and  initiate  themselves  into 
the  delights  of  provincial  whist.  To  get 
rid  of  the  day  they  had  their  horses  sad- 
dled, and  started  on  a  voyage  of  discovery 
round  the  country,  which  was  quite  as 
unknown  to  them  as  China  ;  for  the  most 
foreign  thing  to  Frenchmen  in  France  is 
France  itself. 

By  dint  of  reflecting  on  his  position  as 
an  unfortunate  and  despised  lover,  Ernest 
went  through  something  of  the  same  proc- 
ess as  Modeste's  first  letter  had  forced 
upon    him.    Though  sorrow  is  said  to 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


425 


develop  the  virtues,  it  only  develops  them 
in  virtuous  persons ;  that  cleansing  of  the 
conscience  takes  place  only  in  persons  who 
are  naturallj'  neat.  La  Briere  vowed  to 
endure  his  suffering's  in  Spartan  silence, 
to  act  worthilj',  and  give  waj'  to  no  base- 
ness ;  while  Canalis,  fascinated  b_y  tlie 
enormous  dot,  was  promising  himself  to 
take  every  means  of  captivating  the  heir- 
ess. Selfishness  and  devotion,  the  kej-- 
notes  of  the  two  characters,  therefore 
took,  by  the  action  of  a  moral  law  which 
is  often  very  odd  in  its  effects,  certain 
measures  fhat  were  contrary  to  their 
natures.  The  selfish  man  put  on  self- 
abnegation  ;  the  man  who  thought  chiefly 
of  others  took  refuge  on  the  Mount  Aven- 
tinus  of  pride.  That  phenomenon  is  often 
seen  in  political  life,  also  Men  frequently 
turn  tlieir  characters  wrong  side  out,  and 
it  sometimes  happens  that  the  public  is 
unable  to  tell  which  is  the  right  side. 

After  dinner  the  two  friends  lieard 
through  Germain  of  tlie  ai-rival  of  the 
grand  equerry,  who  was  presented  at  the 
Chalet  the  same  evening  by  Latournelle. 
Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  had  contrived 
to  wound  that  worthy  man  \)y  sending  a 
footman  to  tell  him  to  come  to  her,  in- 
stead of  sending  her  nephew  in  person  ; 
thus  depriving  the  notary  of  a  distin- 
guished visit  of  which  he  would  certainly 
have  boasted  for  the  rest  of  his  natural 
life.  So  Latournelle  curtly  informed  the 
grand  equerry,  when  he  proposed  to  drive 
him  to  the  Chalet,  that  he  was  engaged 
to  take  Madame  Latournelle.  Guessing 
from  the  little  man's  sulk^'  manner  that 
there  was  some  blunder  to  repair,  the 
duke  said  graciously' : — • 

"Then  I  shall  have  the  pleasure,  if  you 
will  allow  me,  of  taking  Madame  Latour- 
nelle also."     , 

Disregarding  Mademoiselle  d'Herou- 
ville's  haughty  shrug,  the  duke  left  the 
room  with  the  notary.  Madame  Latour- 
nelle, half-crazed  with  joy  at  seeing  the 
gorgeous  carriage  at  her  door,  with  foot- 
men in  ro3'al  livery  letting  down  the  steps, 
was  too  agitated  on  hearing  that  the 
grand  equerrj^  had  called  for  her,  to  find 
her  gloves,  her  parasol,  her  absurditj',  or 
her  usual  air  of  pompous  dignity.     Once 


in  the  carriage,  however,  and  while  ex- 
pressing confused  thanks  and  civilities  to 
the  little  duke,  she  suddenly  exclaimed, 
good  naturedly — 

"  But  Butscha,  where  is  he  ?  " 

"Let  us  take  Butscha,"  said  the  duke, 
smiling. 

When  the  people  on  the  quays,  attract- 
ed by  the  splendor  of  the  royal  equipage, 
saw  the  three  little  men  with  the  spare 
gigantic  woman,  they  looked  at  one  an- 
other and  laughed. 

"  If  you  melt  all  three  together,  they 
might  make  one  man  fit  to  mate  with 
that  big  cod-fish,"  said  a  sailor  from 
Bordeaux. 

'•  Is  there  any  other  thing  you  would 
like  to  take  with  you,  madame  ?  "  asked 
the  duke,  jestingly,  while  the  footman 
waited  his  orders. 

"No,  monseigneur,"  she  replied,  turn- 
ing scarlet  and  looking  at  her  husband 
as  much  as  to  say,  "What  did  I  do  that 
was  so  wrong?" 

"Monsieur  le  Due  honors  me  by  con- 
sidering- that  I  am  a  thing,"  said  But- 
scha; "a  poor  clerk  is  usually  thought 
to  be  a  nonentity." 

Though  this  was  said  laughingly,  the 
duke  colored  and  did  not  answer.  Great 
people  are  always  wrong  in  joking  with 
their  social  inferiors.  Jesting  is  a  game, 
and  games  presuppose  equality ;  it  is  to 
obviate  any  inconvenient  results  of  this 
temporary  equality  that  players  have  the 
right,  after  the  game  is  over,  not  to 
recognize  each  other. 

The  visit  of  the  grand  equerry  had  the 
ostensible  excuse  of  an  important  piece  of 
business  ;  namely,  the  retrieval  of  an  im- 
mense tract  of  waste  land  left  by  the  sea 
between  the  mouths  of  the  two  rivers, 
the  title  to  which  had  just  been  adjudged 
by  the  Council  of  State  to  the  house  of 
Herouville.  Tlie  matter  was  nothing  less 
than  putting  flood-gates  with  double 
bridges,  draining  three  or  four  hundred 
acres,  cutting  canals,  and  laying  out 
roads.  When  the  duke  had  explained  the 
condition  of  the  land,  Charles  Mignon 
remarked  that  it  would  be  necessary  to 
wait  until  the  soil,  which  was  still  mov- 
ing, should  settle  naturally. 


426 


THE    HUMAiSr    COMEDY. 


"Time,  which  has  providentially  en- 
riched your  house,  Monsieur  le  Due,  can 
alone  complete  the  work."  he  said,  in 
conclusion.  "It  would  be  prudent  to 
let  fifty  years  elapse  before  you  reclaim 
the  land." 

"Do  not  let  that  be  your  final  word, 
Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  the  duke. 
"  Come  to  Herouville  and  see  things 
for  j-oursclf." 

Charles  Mig-non  replied  that  every  cap- 
italist should  examine  such  matters  with 
a  cool  head,  thus  g-iving-  the  duke  a  pre- 
text for  his  visits  to  the  Chalet.  The 
sight  of  Modeste  made  a  vivid  impression 
on  the  young-  man,  and  he  asked  the 
favor  of  receiving-  her  at  Herouville, 
saying-  that  his  sister  and  his  aunt  had 
heard  much  of  her,  and  wished  to  make 
her  acquaintance.  On  this  the  count 
proposed  to  present  his  daughter  to 
those  ladies  himself,  and  invited  the 
whole  part}^  to  dinner  on  the  day  of  his 
return  to  the  villa.  The  duke  accepted 
the  invitation.  The  sig-ht  of  the  blue 
ribbon,  the  title,  and,  above  all,  the  ecs- 
tatic glances  of  the  nobleman  had  an 
effect  upon  Modeste;  but  she  appeared 
to  grreat  advantag-e  in  carriage,  dig-nity, 
and  conversation.  The  duke  withdrew 
reluctanth',  carrying-  with  him  an  invi- 
tation to  visit  the  Chalet  every  evening- 
— an  invitation  based  on  the  recog-nizcd 
impossibilitj'^  of  a  courtier  of  Charles  X. 
existing  for  a  single  evening  without  his 
rubber. 

The  following  evening,  therefore,  Mo- 
deste was  to  see  all  three  of  her  lovers. 
No  matter  what  young  girls  maji-  say, 
and  though  the  logic  of  the  heart  may 
lead  them  to  sacrifice  everything  to 
preference,  it  is  extremely  flattering  to 
their  self-love  to  see  a  number  of  rival 
adorers  around  them — distinguished  or 
celebrated  naen,  or  men  of  ancient  lineage 
— all  endeavoring  to  shine  and  to  please. 
Although  it  may  not  be  to  Modeste's 
credit,  yet  it  must  be  told  she  subse- 
quently admitted  that  the  sentiments 
expressed  in  her  letters  paled  before  the 
pleasure  of  setting  three  such  different 
minds  at  war  with  one  another  —  three 
men  who,  taken  separately,  would  each 


have  done  honor  to  the  most  exacting 
family'.  Yet  this  luxury  of  self-love  was 
checked  in  her  by  a  misanthi'opical  spite- 
fulness,  resulting  from  the  terrible  wound 
which,  however,  already  seemed  to  her 
oulj'  a  disappointment.  So  when  her  la- 
ther said  to  her,  laughing,  ''  Well,  Mo- 
deste, do  you  want  to  be  a  duchess?" 
she  answered,  with  a  mocking-  curtsey — 
.   "Sorrows  have  made  me  lihilosoijhical. " 

"  Do  you  mean  to  be  only  a  baroness  ?  " 
asked  Butscha. 

"Or  a  viscountess?  "   said  her  father. 

"How  could  that  be?"  she  asked 
quickly. 

"  If  you  should  accept  Monsieur  de  la 
Briere,  he  would  have  enough  influence  to 
obtain  permission  from  the  king  to  bear 
my  titles  and  arms." 

"  Oh,  if  it  comes  to  disguising  himself, 
lie  will  not  make  any  difficulty,"  said  Mo- 
deste, scornfully. 

Butscha  did  not  understand  this  epi- 
gram, whose  meaning  could  onlj'  be 
guessed  by  Monsieur  and  Madame  Mi- 
gnon  and  Dumay. 

"  When  it  is  a  question  of  marriage,  all 
men  disguise  themselves,"  remarked  Ma- 
dame Latournelle,  "and  women  set  them 
the  example.  I've  heard  it  said  all  my 
life  that  '  Monsieur  this  or  Mademoiselle 
that  has  made  a  g-ood  marriage  ;  ' — does 
that  mean  that  the  other  side  had  made 
a  bad  one  ?  " 

"Marriage,"  said  Butscha,  "is  like  a 
lawsuit ;  there's  always  one  side  discon- 
tented. If  one  dupes  the  other,  certainly 
half  the  married  people  in  the  world  are 
playing  a  comedj^  at  the  expense  of  the 
other  half." 

"  From  which  you  conclude,  Sieur  But- 
scha ?  "  inquired  Modeste. 

"  To  pay  the  strictest  attention  to  the 
maneuvers  of  the  enemy,"  tinswered  the 
clerk. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you,  my  darling  ?  " 
said  Charles  Mignon,  alluding  lo  their 
conversation  on  the  seashore. 

"  Men  play  as  many  parts  to  get  mar- 
ried as  mothers  make  their  daughters 
play  to  get  rid  of  them,"  said  Latournelle. 

"Then  you  approve  of  stratagems?" 
said  Modeste. 


MODESTE    MIGNOy. 


427 


"  On  both  sides,"  cried  Gobenheim, 
"and  that  brings  it  even." 

This  conversation  was  carried  on  inter- 
ruptedly, in  the  intervals  of  cutting-  and 
dealings  the  cards,  and  was  Interspersed 
with  appreciative  remarks  upon  the  merits 
of  the  Due  d"Herouville,  who  was  approved 
of  by  little  Latournelle,  little  Dumay,  and 
little  Butscha. 

"1  see,"  said  Madame  Mig-non  with  a 
smile,  "that  Madame  Latournelle  and 
my  poor  husband  are  giants  here." 

"  Fortunately  for  him,  the  colonel  is 
not  very  tall,"  replied  Butscha,  while  his 
patron  dealt  the  cards,  "for  a  tall  and 
intelligent  man  is  always  an  exception." 

Witliout  the  foregoing  discussion  on 
the  lawfulness  of  matrimonial  tricks,  the 
reader  might  possibly  And  the  forthcom- 
ing account  of  the  evening  so  impatientlj' 
awaited  hy  Butscha  somewhat  too  long. 

Desplein,  the  famous  surgeon,  arrived 
the  next  morning,  and  stayed  only  long 
enough  to  send  to  Havre  for  fresh  horses 
and  have  them  put-to,  which  took  about 
an  hour.  After  examining  Madame  Mi- 
gnon's  ej-es,  he  decided  that  she  could  re- 
cover her  sight,  and  fixed  a  suitable  time, 
a  month  later,  to  perform  the  operation. 
This  important  consultation  took  place  be- 
fore the  assembled  members  of  the  Chalet, 
who  stood  trembling  and  expectant  to 
hear  the  decree  of  the  prince  of  science. 
That  illustrious  member  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences  put  about  a  dozen  brief  ques- 
tions to  the  blind  woman  as  he  examined 
her  eyes  in  the  strong  light  from  a  win- 
dow. Modesto  was  amazed  at  the  value 
which  a  man  so  celebrated  attached  to 
time,  when  she  saw  the  traveling-carriage 
piled  with  books  which  the  great  surgeon 
proposed  to  read  during  the  journey ;  for 
he  had  left  Paris  the  evening  before,  and 
had  spent  the  night  in  sleeping  and  travel- 
ing. The  rapid  itj'^  and  clearness  of  Des- 
plein's  judgment  on  each  answer  made  by 
Madame  Mignon,  his  succinct  tone,  his 
decisive  manner,  gave  Modeste  her  first 
real  idea  of  a  man  of  genius.  She  per- 
ceived the  enormous  difference  between 
a  second-rate  man,  like  Canalis,  and  Des- 
plein, who  was  even  more  than  a  superior 
man.     A  man  of  genius  finds  in  the  con- 


sciousness of  his  talent  and  in  the  solidity 
of  his  fame  an  arena  of  his  own,  where 
bis  legitimate  pride  can  expand  and  ex- 
ercise itself  ■nithout  troubling  anj'  one. 
Moreover,  his  perpetual  struggle  with 
men  and  things  leaves  him  no  time  for 
the  coquetries  of  fashionable  heroes,  who 
make  haste  to  gather  in  the  harvests  of 
a  fugitive  season,  and  whose  vanitj'  and 
self-love  are  as  petty  and  exacting  as  a 
custom-house  which  levies  tithes  on  all 
that  comes  in  its  way. 

Modeste  was  the  more  enchanted  by  this 
great  practician,  because  he  was  evidently 
charmed  with  her  own  exquisite  beauty — 
he,  through  whose  hands  so  manj'  women 
passed,  and  who  had  long  since  examined 
the  sex,  as  it  were,  with  magnifier  and 
scalpel. 

"  It  would  be  a  sad  pity,"  he  said,  with 
an  air  of  gallantry  which  he  knew  well 
enough  how  to  use,  and  which  contrasted 
with  his  assumed  bruskness,  "if  a  mo- 
ther were  deprived  of  the  sight  of  so 
charming  a  daughter." 

Modeste  insisted  on  serving  the  simple 
breakfast  which  was  all  the  great  surgeon 
would  accept.  She,  with  her  father  and 
Dumay,  accompanied  the  great  surgeon, 
who  was  longingly  expected  by  so  many 
invalids,  to  the  carriage  stationed  at  the 
garden-gate,  and  said  to  Desplein,  her 
eyes  shining  with  hope — 

"  And  will  my  dear  mamma  really  see 
me?" 

"Yes,  my  little  sprite,  I'll  promise  you 
that,"  he  answered,  smiling;  "and  I  am 
incapable  of  deceiving  you,  for  I,  too,  have 
a  daughter." 

The  horses  started  and  carried  him  off 
as  he  uttered  the  last  words  with  unex- 
pected grace  and  feeling.  Nothing  is  more 
charming  than  that  unexpectedness  which 
is  peculiar  to  persons  of  talent. 


XX. 


The  visit  of  the  great  surgeon  was  the 
event  of  the  day,  and  it  left  a  luminous 
refiection  in  Modeste's  soul.  The  young 
enthusiast    ardentlv    admired    the    man 


428 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


■whose  life  belonged  to  everj-  one,  and  in 
whom  tlie  habit  of  studying:  physical  suf- 
fering had  destroyed  tlie  manifestations 
of  egoism.  That  evening,  when  Goben- 
heim,  the  Latournelles,  and  Bntscha, 
Canalis,  Ernest,  and  the  Ducd'Herou- 
ville  were  assembled  in  the  salon,  they 
all  congratulated  the  Mignon  family  on 
the  good  report  given  by  Desplein.  The 
conversation,  in  which  the  Modeste  of  her 
letters  was  once  more  in  the  ascendant, 
turned  naturally  on  the  man  whose  gen- 
ius, unfortunately  for  his  fame,  was  ap- 
preciable onlj-  by  the  faculty  and  men  of 
science.  Gobenheim  contributed  a  phrase 
which  is  in  our  day  the  sacred  chrism  of 
genius  in  the  minds  of  loublic  economists 
and  bankers — 

"  He  makes  a  mint  of  money." 

"  Thej-  say  he  is  very  grasping,"  added 
Canalis. 

The  praises  which  Modeste  showered 
on  Desplein  disturbed  the  poet.  Vanity 
acts  like  a  woman — they  both  think  they 
are  defrauded  when  love  or  praise  is  be- 
stowed on  others.  Voltaire  was  jealous 
of  the  wit  of  a  roud  whom  Paris  admired 
for  two  days,  just  as  a  duchess  takes 
offense  at  a  look  bestowed  upon  her  maid. 
The  avarice  excited  by  these  two  senti- 
ments is  such  that  a  fraction  of  them 
given  to  the  poor  is  thought  robber3\ 

"Do  you  thinl<,  monsieur,"  said  Mo- 
deste, smiling,  "that  we  can  judge  gen- 
ius by  ordinary  standards  ?  "' 

"Perhaps  it  would  be  necessary,  first 
of  all,  to  define  the  man  of  genius,"  re- 
plied Canalis.  "  One  of  the  conditions  of 
genius  is  invention — invention  of  a  form, 
a  system,  a  force.  Napoleon  was  an  in- 
ventor, apart  from  his  other  conditions 
of  genius.  He  invented  his  method  of 
making  war.  AValter  Scott  is  an  in- 
ventor, Linnajus  is  an  inventor,  Geoffrey 
Saint-Hilaire  and  Cuvier  are  inventors. 
Such  men  are  men  of  genius  of  the  first 
rank.  Tliey  renew,  increase,  or  modify 
both  science  and  art.  But  Desplein  is 
merely  a  man  whose  vast  talent  consists 
ill  properly  applying  laws  already  known; 
in  observing,  by  means  of  a  natural  gift, 
the  limits  of  each  temperament,  and  the 
time  appointed  by  Nature  for  performing 


an  operation.  He  has  not  founded,  like 
Hippocrates,  the  science  itself.  He  has 
invented  no  system,  as  did  Galen,  Brous- 
sais,  and  Easori.  He  is  merelj'  an  execu- 
tive genius,  like  Moscheles  on  the  piano, 
Paganini  on  the  violin,  or  Fai-inelli  on 
his  own  lai'^aix — men  who  have  developed 
enormous  faculties,  but  who  have  not 
created  music.  You  must  permit  me  to 
discriminate  between  Beethoven  and  La 
Catalani :  to  one  belongs  the  immortal 
crown  of  genius  and  of  martyrdom,  to 
the  other  innumerable  five-franc  pieces  ; 
one  we  can  pay  in  coin,  but  the  woi'ld  re- 
mains forever  a  debtor  to  the  other. 
Each  day  increases  our  debt  to  Moliere, 
but  we  have  more  than  paid  Baron." 

"I  think,  my  friend,  that  you  lay  too 
much  stress  upon  beautiful  ideas,"  said 
Ernest  de  la  Briere,  in  a  quiet  and  melo- 
dious voice,  which  formed  a  sudden  con- 
trast to  the  peremptory  tones  of  the  poet, 
whose  flexible  organ  had  abandoned  its 
caressing  tones  for  the  strident  and  mag- 
isterial voice  of  the  rostrum.  "  Genius 
must  te  estimated,  first  of  all,  accord- 
ing to  its  utility  ;  and  Parmentier,  who 
brought  potatoes  into  general  use ;  Jac- 
quart,  the  inventor  of  silk  looms  ;  Papin, 
who  first  discovered  the  elastic  quality  of 
steam,  are  also  men  of  genius,  to  whom 
statues  will  some  day  be  erected.  They 
have  changed,  or  they  will  change,  in  a 
certain  sense,  the  face  of  the  country. 
Iia  that  sense,  Desjilein  will  alwaj's  be 
considered  a,  man  of  genius  by  thinkers 
who  see  him  attended  by  a  g'cneration  of 
sufferers  whose  pains  are  stilled  by  his 
powerful  hand." 

That  Ernest  should  give  utterance  to 
this  opinion  was  enough  to  make  Modeste 
oppose  it. 

"  If  that  be  so,  monsieur,"  she  said, 
"  then  the  man  who  could  discover  a  way 
to  mow  wheat  without  injuring  the  straw, 
by  a  machine  that  could  do  the  Avork  of 
ten  men,  would  be  a  man  of  genius." 

"Yes,  my  daughter,"  said  Madame 
Mignon  ;  "  and  the  poor  would  bless  him 
for  cheaper  bread — and  he  that  is  blessed 
by  the  poor  is  blessed  of  God." 

"That  is  putting  utility  above  art," 
said  Modeste,  shaking  her  head. 


MODESTE    MIGNOy. 


429 


"Without  utility  what  would  become 
of  art?"'  said  Charles  Mignon.  "What 
would  it  rest  on  ?  what  would  it  live  on  ? 
Whei'e  would  \o\.\  lodg-e,  and  how  would 
you  pay  the  poet  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  my  dear  papa,  such  opinions  are 
fearfully  flat  and  commonplace !  I  am 
not  surprised  that  Gobenheim  and  Mon- 
sieur do  la  Briere,  who  are  interested  in 
the  solution  of  social  problems,  should 
think  so ;  but  j'ou,  whose  life  has  been 
the  most  useless  poetry  of  the  century — 
since  the  blood  you  shed  all  over  Europe, 
and  the  horrible  sufferings  exacted  by 
your  colossus,  did  nob  prevent  France 
from  losing  ten  departments  acquired  un- 
der the  Republic — how  can  you  give  in  to 
such  excessively  pig-tail  notions,  as  the 
idealists  say  ?  It  is  plain  you've  just  come 
from  China." 

The  impertinence  of  Modeste's  speech 
was  heightened  by  a  little  scornful  and 
disdainful  tone,  which  she  purposely  as- 
sumed, and  which  fairly  astounded  Ma- 
dame Mignon,  Madame  Latournelle  and 
Dumay.  As  for  Madame  Latournelle, 
although  she  opened  her  eyes  wide,  she 
did  not  understand  it.  Butscha,  whose 
alert  attention  was  comparable  to  that  of 
a  spy,  looked  at  Monsieur  Mignon,  signifi- 
cantly, as  he  saw  him  flush  with  sudden 
and  violent  indignation. 

"  A  little  more,  young  lady,  and  you 
will  be  wanting  in  respect  for  your  fa- 
ther," said  the  colonel,  smiling,  and  un. 
derstanding  Butscha's  look.  "  See  what 
it  is  to  spoil  one's  children  !  " 

"I  am  your  only  child,"  she  replied, 
saucily. 

"  Child,  indeed,"  remarked  the  notarj-, 
significantljr. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  dryly,  "  my 
father  is  delighted  to  have  me  for  his 
governess ;  he  gave  me  life  and  I  give 
him  knowledge;  he  will  soon  owe  me 
something." 

'' Thei'e  is  a  lime  and  a  manner  for 
everything,"  said  Madame  Mignon. 

"But  mademoiselle  is  right,"  said  Ca- 
nalis,  rising  and  standing  before  the  fire- 
place in  one  of  the  finest  attitudes  of  his 
collection.  "  Grod,  in  His  providence,  has 
given  food  and  clothing  to  man,  but  He 


has  not  directly  given  him  art.  He  says 
to  man  :  '  To  live,  thou  must  bow  thyself 
to  earth  ;  to  think,  thou  shalt  raise  thy- 
self to  Me.'  We  have  as  much  need  of 
the  life  of  the  soul  as  of  the  life  of  the 
bod3- — hence,  there  are  two  utilities.  It 
is  true  we  cannot  be  shod  by  books.  An 
epic  song  is  not,  from  a  utilitarian  point 
of  view,  as  useful  as  the  broth  of  a  chai-itj' 
kitchen.  The  noblest  ideas  would  scarcely 
replace  the  sail  of  a  ship.  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  cotton-gin  gives  us  calicoes  for 
thirty'  sous  a  yard  less  than  we  ever  paid 
before  ;  but  tliat  machme  and  all  other 
industrial  perfections  will  not  breathe  the 
breath  of  life  into  a  people,  will  not  tell 
futuritj'  of  a  civilization  that  once  ex- 
isted. While  Egyptian,  Mexican,  Gre- 
cian, and  Roman  art,^with  their  master- 
pieces— now  called  useless  ! — reveal  the 
existence  of  races  in  the  vast  space  of 
time,  where  the  great  intermediary  na- 
tions, denuded  of  men  of  genius,  have 
disappeared,  leaving  not  a  line  nor  a 
trace  behind  them  !  The  works  of  genius 
are  the  summum  of  civilization,  and  pre- 
suppose utility.  Surely  a  pair  of  boots 
are  not  as  agreeable  to  your  eyes  as  a 
fine  play  at  the  theater ;  and  you  would 
not  prefer  a  wind-mill  to  the  church  of 
Saint-Ouen  ?  Well,  then,  nations  are 
imbued  with  the  same  feelings  as  indi- 
vidual men,  and  a  man's  cherished  desire 
is  to  survive  himself  morally  just  as  he 
propagates  himself  pln-sically.  The  sur- 
vival of  a  people  is  the  work  of  its  men 
of  genius.  At  this  very  moment  France 
is  proving,  energetically,  the  truth  of 
that  theory.  She  is,  undoubtedly,  ex- 
celled by  England  in  commerce,  indus- 
try, and  navigation,  and  yet  she  is,  I 
believe,  at  the  head  of  the  world — by 
reason  of  her  artists,  her  men  of  talent, 
and  the  good  taste  of  her  products. 
There  is  no  artist  and  no  superior  intel- 
lect that  does  not  come  to  Paris  for  a 
diploma.  There  is  no  school  of  painting 
at  this  moment  but  that  of  France ;  and 
we  shall  reign  far  longer  and  perhaps 
more  surely  by  our  books  than  by  our 
swords.  In  La  Briere"s  sj'stem,  on  the 
other  hand,  all  that  is  gloiious  and  lovely 
must  be  suppressed — woman 's  beauty-,  mu- 


430 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


sic,  painting,  poetry.  Society  will  not  be 
overthrown,  it  is  true,  but,  I  ask  you,  who 
would  willingly  accept  such  a  life?  All  that 
is  useful  is  ugly  and  forbidding.  A  kitchen 
is  indispensable,  but  you  take  care  not  to 
sit  there ;  you  live  in  the  salon,  which 
you  adorn,  like  this  one,  with  things 
which  are  perfectly  useless.  Of  what 
use,  let  me  ask  you,  are  these  charming 
wall-paintings,  this  carved  wood-work  ? 
There  is  nothing  beautiful  but  that 
which  seems  to  us  useless.  We  called 
the  sixteenth  century  the  Renaissance  with 
admirable  truth  of  expression.  That  cent- 
ury was  the  dawn  of  a  new  era.  Men 
will  continue  to  speak  of  it  when  all 
remembrance  of  anterior  centuries  has 
passed  awaj-— their  only  merit  being  that 
they  once  existed,  like  the  million  beings 
who  do  not  count  in  a  generation." 

"  We  maj'  be  rubbish,  but  my  rub- 
bish is  dear  to  me,"  said  the  Due 
d'Herouville,  laughingly,  in  the  silent 
pause  which  followed  the  poet's  pompous 
oration. 

'•'  Let  me  ask, "said  Butscha,  attacking 
Canalis,  "  does  art,  the  sphere  in  which, 
according  to  you,  genius  is  required  to 
evolve  itself,  exist  at  all  ?  Is  it  not  a 
splendid  lie,  a  delusion,  of  the  social 
man?  Do  I  want  a  landscape  scene  of 
Normandy  in  my  bedroom  when  I  can 
look  out  and  see  a  better  one  done  hy 
God  Himself  ?  Our  dreams  make  poems 
more  glorious  than  Iliads.  For  an  insig- 
nificant sum  of  monej'^  I  can  find  at  Va- 
logne,  at  Carentan,  in  Provence,  or  at 
Aries,  many  a  Venus  as  beautiful  as 
those  of  Titian.  The  police  gazette  pub- 
lishes tales,  differing  somewhat  from 
those  of  Walter  Scott,  but  ending  trag- 
ically with  real  blood,  not  ink.  Happi- 
ness and  virtue  exist  above  and  bej'ond 
both  art  and  genius." 

"  Bravo,  Butscha  !  "  cried  Madame  La- 
toumelle. 

"What  did  he  say  ?  "  asked  Canalis  of 
La  Briere,  ceasing  to  gather  from  the 
eyes  and  attitude  of  Mademoiselle  Mignon 
the  charming  signs  of  artless  admiration. 
The  contemptuous  indifference  which  Mo- 
deste  had  exhibited  toward  La  Briere,  and 
above  all,  her  disrespectful  speeches  to  her 


father,  had  so  saddened  the  young  man 
that  he  made  no  answer  to  Canalis  ;  his 
e^-es,  fixed  sorrowfully  on  Modeste,  were 
full  of  deep  meditation.  The  Due  d'Herou- 
ville took  up  Butscha's  argument  and  re- 
produced it  with  much  intelligence,  saying 
finally  that  the  ecstasies  of  Saint-Theresa 
were  far  superior  to  the  creations  of  Lord 
Byron. 

'•  Oh,  Monsieur  le  Due,"  exclaimed  Mo- 
deste, ''hers  was  a  purely  personal  po- 
etry, whereas  the  genius  of  Lord  Bj'ron 
and  Moliere  benefit  the  Avorld." 

"  How  do  you  reconcile  that  opinion 
with  those  of  Monsieur  le  Baron  ?  "  cried 
Charles  Mignon,  quickly.  "Now you  are 
insisting  that  genius  must  be  useful,  and 
benefit  the  world  as  absolutely  as  cotton 
— but  perhaps  you  think  logic  as  flat  as 
your  poor  old  father  ?  " 

Butscha,  La  Briere,  and  Madame  La- 
tournelle  exchanged  glances  that  were 
more  than  half  derisive,  and  drove  Mo- 
deste to  a  pitch  of  irritation  that  kept  her 
silent  for  a  moment. 

"Mademoiselle,  do  not  mind  them," 
said  Canalis,  smiling  upon  her,  "  we  are 
neither  beaten,  nor  caught  in  a  contra- 
diction. Every  work  of  art,  let  it  be  in 
Uterature,  music,  painting,  sculpture,  or 
architecture,  implies  a  positive  social 
utility',  equal  to  that  of  all  other  com- 
mercial products.  Art  is  pre-eminentlj' 
commerce ;  it  presupposes  it.  A  book 
nowadays  brings  an  author  ten  thousand 
francs ;  the  making  of  books  means  the 
manufactory  of  paper,  a  foundry,  a  print- 
ing office,  a  bookseller — in  other  words, 
the  employment  of  thousands  of  men. 
The  execution  of  a  symphony  of  Bee- 
thoven or  an  opera  by  Rossini  requires 
an  equal  number  of  human  arms  and  ma- 
chinerj'  and  manufactures.  The  cost  of 
a  monument  is  an  almost  brutal  case  in 
point.  In  short,  I  may  saj'^  that  the  works 
of  genius  have  an  extremely  costly  basis, 
and  are,  necessarily,  useful  to  the  work- 
ingman." 

Astride  of  that  theme,  Canalis  spoke 
for  some  minutes  with  a  fine  luxurj'  of 
metaphor,  and  much  inward  complacency 
as  to  his  phrases :  but  it  happened  with 
him,  as  with  many  another  great  speaker. 


MODESTE    MIGNOX. 


431 


that  he  found  himself  at  last  at  the  point 
from  which  the  conversation  started,  and 
in  full  agreement  with  La  Briere,  without 
perceiving-  it. 

'■'I  see  with  much  jileasure,  my  dear 
baron,"  said  the  little  duke,  slyly,  "that 
you  will  make  an  admirable  constitutional 
minister." 

'•  Oh  !  "  said  Canalis,  with  the  gesture 
of  a  great  man,  "what  do  we  prove  by 
all  these  discussions  ?  Only  the  eternal 
verity  of  one  axiom  :  All  things  are  true, 
all  things  are  false.  Moral  truths  as  well 
as  human  beings  change  their  aspect 
according-  to  their  surroundings,  to  the 
point  of  being  actuallj-  imrecognizable." 

"Society  lives  upon  settled  opinions," 
said  the  Due  d'Herouvillc. 

"What  laxity!"  whispered  Madame 
Latournelle  to  her  husband. 

"He  is  a  poet,"  said  Gobenheim,  who 
overheard  her. 

Canalis,  who  was  ten  leagues  above 
the  heads  of  his  audience,  and  who  may 
have  been  right  in  his  last  philosophical 
remark,  took  the  sort  of  coldness  which 
now  overspread  the  surrounding-  faces 
for  a  symptom  of  provincial  ig-norance; 
but  seeing-  that  Modeste  understood  him, 
he  was  content,  being-  wholly  unaware 
*hat  monologue  is  particularly  disagree- 
able to  country-folk,  whose  principal  de- 
sire it  is  to  exhibit  to  Parisians  the  man- 
ner of  life  and  the  wit  and  wisdom  of 
the  provinces. 

"  Is  it  long  since  you  have  seen  the 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu  ?  "  asked  the  duke, 
addressing-  Canalis,  in  order  to  change 
the  conversation. 

"I  left  her  about  six  days  ago." 

"Is  she  well  ?  "  persisted  the  duke. 

"Perfectly  well." 

"Have  the  kindness  to  remember  me 
to  her  when  you   write." 

"Do  thej'  call  her  charming-,"  asked 
Modeste,  addressing  the  duke. 

"Monsieur  le  Baron  can  speak  more 
intelligently  than  I,  upon  that  point," 
replied  the  grand  equerry. 


'  She   is   more  than   charmini 


said 


Canalis,  making  the  best  of  the  duke's 
perfidy  ;  "  but  I  am  partial,  mademoi- 
selle ;  she  has  been  a  friend  to  me  for 


the  last  ten  years  ;  I  owe  all  that  is  good 
in  me  to  her  ;  she  has  saved  me  from  the 
dangers  of  the  world.  Moreover,  Monsieur 
le  Due  de  Chaulieu  launched  me  in  my  pres- 
ent career.  Without  the  influence  of  that 
famih'  the  king-  and  the  princesses  would 
have  often  forgotten  a  poor  poet  like  me ; 
therefore  my  affection  for  the  duchess 
must  always  be  full  of  gratitude." 

His  voice  quivered. 

"We  ought  to  love  the  woman  who 
has  led  you  to  write  those  sublime  poems, 
and  who  inspires  you  with  such  noble 
feelings,"  said  Modeste,  quite  affected. 
"  Who  can  think  of  a  poet  without  a 
muse  !  " 

"  He  would  be  without  a  heart,"  re- 
plied Canalis.  "He  would  write  barren 
verses,  like  Voltaire,  who  never  loved 
any  one  but  Voltaire." 

"I  thought  3'ou  did  me  the  honor  to 
say,  in  Paris,"  interrupted  Dumay,  "that 
you  never  felt  the  sentiments  you  ex- 
pressed." 

"  The  shoe  fits,  my  soldier,"  replied 
the  poet,  smiling:  "but  let  me  tell  you 
that  it  is  quite  possible  to  have  a  great 
deal  of  feeling  both  in  the  intellectual 
life  and  in  real  life.  It  is  possible  to 
express  fine  sentiments  without  feeling 
them,  and  to  feel  them  without  being 
able  to  express  them.  My  good  friend 
here.  La  Briere,  is  madly  in  love,"  con- 
tinued Canali.s,  with  a  fine  show  of  gen- 
erosity, looking  at  Modeste.  "  I,  who 
certainly  love  as  much  as  he,  could,  unless 
I  deceive  myself,  give  my  love  a  literary 
form  in  harmony  with  its  power.  But  I 
dare  not  saj*,  mademoiselle,"  he  added, 
turning  to  Modeste  with  too  studied  a 
grace,  "that  to-morrow  I  may  not  be 
without  any  wits  at  all." 

Thus  the  poet  triumphed  over  all  ob- 
stacles. In  honor  of  his  love  he  rode  a-tilt 
at  the  hindrances  that  were  thrown  in  his 
waj%  and  Modeste  remained  wonderstruck 
at  the  Parisian  wit  that  scintillated  in 
his  declamatory  discourse,  of  which  she 
had  hitherto  known  little  or  nothing. 

"What  an  acrobat  I  "  whispered  But- 
scha  to  Latournelle,  after  listening  to  a 
magnificent  tirade  on  the  Catholic  religion 
and  the  happiness  of  having  a  pious  wife 


43? 


THE    HUMAX    COMEDY. 


— served  up  in  response  to  a  remark  l\y 
Madame  Mignon. 

Modeste's  eyes  were  blindfolded  ;  Ca- 
nalis's  elocution  and  the  close  attention 
which  she  was  predeterinined  to  pay  to 
him  prevented  her  from  seeing-  that  But- 
scha  was  carefully  noting-  the  declama- 
tion, the  want  of  simplicity,  the  emphasis 
that  took  the  place  of  feeling-,  and  the 
curious  incoherencies  in  the  poet's  speech 
which  led  the  dwarf  to  make  his  rather 
cruel  comment.  At  certain  points  of  Ca- 
nalis's  discourse,  when  Monsieur  Mignon, 
Dumay,  Butscha,  and  Latournelle  won- 
dered at  the  man's  utter  want  of  logic, 
Modesto  admired  his  suppleness,  and  said 
to  herself,  as  she  drew  him  with  her 
through  the  labyrinth  of  fancy,  "  He 
loves  me  !  "  Butscha,  in  common  with 
the  other  spectators  of  what  we  must  call 
a  stage  scene,  was  struck  with  the  radical 
defect  of  all  egoists,  which  Canalis,  like 
all  men  accustomed  to  perorate,  allowed 
to  be  too  plainl.y  seen.  Whether  he  un- 
derstood beforehand  what  the  person  he 
was  speaking  to  meant  to  say,  whether 
he  was  not  listening,  or  whether  he  had 
the  facultj'  of  listening  when  he  was  think- 
ing of  something  else,  it  is  certain  that 
Melchior's  face  wore  an  absent-minded 
look  in  conversation,  which  disconcerted 
the  ideas  of  others  as  much  as  it  wounded 
their  vanity. 

Not  to  listen  is  not  merely  a  want  of 
politeness,  but  it  is  a  mark  of  disrespect. 
Canalis  carried  this  habit  too  far ;  for  he 
often  forgot  to  answer  a  speech  which  re- 
quired an  answer,  and  passed,  without 
the  ordinary  transitions  of  courtesy,  to 
the  subject,  whatever  it  was,  that  preoc- 
cupied him.  Though  such  impertinence  is 
accepted  without  protest  from  a  man  of 
marked  distinction,  it  stirs  a  leaven  of 
hatred  and  vengeance  in  many  hearts ;  in 
those  of  equals  it  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
destroy  friendship.  If  by  chance  Melchior 
forced  himself  to  listen,  he  fell  into  an- 
other fault ;  he  merely  lent  his  attention, 
and  never  gave  it.  Though  this  maj^  not 
be  so  mortifying,  it  shows  a  kind  of  semi- 
concession  which  is  almost  as  unsatisfac- 
tory to  the  hearer  and  leaves  him  dis- 
satisfied.    Nothing  brings  more  profit  in 


the  commerce  of  society  than  the  small 
change  of  attention.  He  that  heareth  lot 
him  hear,  is  not  onl^^  a  Gospel  precept,  but 
an  excellent  rule  ;  follow  it,  and  all  will 
be  forgiven,  even  vice.  Canalis  took  a 
great  deal  of  trouble  in  his  anxiety  to 
please  Modesto  ;  but  though  he  was  com- 
pliant enough  with  her,  he  fell  back  into 
his  natural  self  with  the  others. 

Modesto,  pitiless  for  the  ten  martyrs 
she  was  making,  begged  Canalis  to  read 
some  of  his  poems  ;  she  wanted,  she  said, 
a  specimen  of  his  gift  for  reading,  of  which 
she  had  heard  so  much.  Canalis  took  the 
volume  which  she  gave  him,  and  cooed 
(for  that  is  the  proper  word)  a  poem  which 
is  generally  considered  his  finest — an  imi- 
tation of  Moore's  '-Loves  of  the  Angels," 
entitled  ViTALls,  which  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Dumay,  Madame  Latournelle,  and 
Gobenheim  welcomed  with  a  few  yawns. 

"  If  you  are  a  good  whist-player,  mon- 
sieur," said  Gobenheim,  flourishing  five 
cards  held  like  a  fan,  "I  must  say  I 
have  never  met  a  man  as  accomplished 
as  you." 

The  remark  raised  a  laugh,  for  it  was 
the  translation  of  everybody's  thouglit. 

"  I  play  it  sufHciently  well  to  live  in  the 
provinces  for  the  rest  of  my  days,"  replied 
Canalis.  "That,  I  think,  is  enough,  and 
more  than  enough  literature  and  conver- 
sation for  whist-players,"  he  added, throw- 
ing the  volume  impatiently  on  a  table. 

This  little  incident  serves  to  show  what 
dangers  environ  a  drawing-room  hero 
when  he  steps,  like  Cnnalis,  out  of  his 
sphei'e  ;  he  is  like  the  favorite  actor  of 
a  second-rate  audience,  whose  talent 
comes  to  grief  when  he  leaves  his  own 
boards  and  steps  upon  those  of  an  upper- 
class  theater. 


XXI. 


The  baron  and  the  duke  were  partners, 
and  Gobenheim  and  Latournelle  played 
together.  Modesto  took  a  seat  near  the 
poet,  to  Ernest's  deep  disappointment; 
he  watched  the  face  of  tlie  capricious 
girl,  and  marked  the  progress  of  the 
fascination   which   Canalis    exerted  over 


MODESTE    MI6.\0iV. 


433 


her.  La  Briere  ad  not  the  g-ift  of  se- 
duction which  Melchior  possessed  and 
which  Nature  frequently  denies  to  true 
hearts,  wlio  are,  as  a  rule,  timid.  This 
gift  demands  fearlessness  and  a  vivacity 
of  wa^'s  and  means  that  mig-ht  be  called 
the  trapeze  of  the  mind  ;  a  little  mimicrj' 
g-ocs  with  it ;  in  fact  there  is  alwaj's, 
morally  speaking-,  something  of  the  come- 
dian in  a  poet.  There  is  a  vast  difference 
between  expressing  sentiments  we  do  not 
feel,  though  we  may  imagine  all  their 
variations,  and  feig-ning-  to  feel  them 
when  bidding  for  success  on  the  theater 
of  private  life.  And  yet,  though  the  nec- 
essary hyiiocrisj'  of  a  man  of  the  world 
may  have  gangrened  a  poet,  he  ends  by 
carrying-  the  faculties  of  his  talent  into 
the  expression  of  any  required  senti- 
ment, just  as  a  g-reat  man  doomed  to 
solitude  ends  by  infusing  his  heart  into 
his  mind. 

"  He  is  working  for  the  millions," 
thought  La  Briere,  sadly ;  "  and  he  can 
imitate  passion  so  well  that  Modesto  w411 
believe  him." 

Instead  of  endeavoring  to  appear  more 
amiable  and  witty  than  his  rival,  Ernest, 
like  the  Due  d'Heronville,  was  g-loomj', 
anxious,  and  watchful ;  but  while  the  cour- 
tier studied  the  freaks  of  the  young-  heir- 
ess, Ernest  simply  fell  a  prey  to  the  pains 
of  dai'k  and  concentrated  jealousy.  He 
had  not  yet  been  able  to  obtain  a  glance 
from  his  idol.  After  a  while  he  left  the 
room  with  Butscha. 

"It  is  all  over!"  he  said;  "she  is 
caught  by  him ;  I  am  more  than  dis- 
agreeable to  her,  and,  moreover,  she  is 
right.  Canalis  is  charming- ;  there  is 
wit  even  in  his  silence,  passion  in  his 
eyes,  and  poetry  in  his  rhodomontades." 

"Is  he  an  honest  man?"  asked  But- 
scha. 

"Oh,  yes,"  replied  La  Briere.  "He  is 
loyal  and  chivalrous,  and  capable  of  g-et- 
ting  rid,  under  Modeste's  influence,  of 
those  affectations  which  Madame  de 
Chaulieu  has  taught  him." 

"  You  are  a  fine  fellow,"  said  the  hunch- 
back ;  "but  is  he  capable  of  loving — will 
he  love  her?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  La  Priere. 


"  Has  she  said  anj'thing-  about  me  ?  "  he 
asked  after  a  moment's  silence. 

"Yes,"  said  Butscha,  and  he  repeated 
Modeste's  speech  about  disguises. 

Poor  Ernest  flung  himself  upon  a  bench 
and  held  his  head  in  his  hands.  He  could 
not  keep  back  his  tears ;  he  did  not  wish 
Butscha  to  see  them ;  but  the  dwarf  Avas 
the  very  man  to  g-uess  his  emotion. 

"  What  troubles  you  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  She  is  right !  "  cried  Ernest,  suddenly' 
lifting  his  head  ;  "  I  am  a  wretch." 

And  he  related  the  deception  into  which 
Canalis  had  led  him,  carefully  pointing- 
out  to  Butscha,  however,  that  he  had 
wished  to  undeceive  the  young  g-irl  be- 
fore she  herself  took  off  the  mask,  and 
apostrophizing  his  luckless  destiny.  But- 
scha sympathetically  understood  the  love 
in  the  flavor  and  vigor  of  his  simple  lan- 
g-uage,  and  in  his  deep  and  genuine  anx- 
iety. 

"But  why  don't  you  show  yourself  to 
Mademoiselle  Modesto  for  what  you  arc  ?" 
he  said  ;  "  why  do  you  let  your  rival  do  all 
his  tricks  for  her  benefit  ?  " 

"  Have  you  never  felt  your  throat 
tighten  when  you  wished  to  speak  to 
her?  "cried  La  Briere;  "is  there  never 
a  strange  feeling  in  the  roots  of  j-our  hair 
and  on  the  surface  of  your  skin  when  she 
looks  at  you — even  if  she  is  thinking  of 
something  else?  " 

"But  you  had  sufficient  judgment  to 
look  sorrowful  when  sh('  as  good  as  told 
her  excellent  father  that  he  was  a  dolt." 

"  Monsieur,  I  love  her  too  well  not  to 
have  felt  a  knife  in  my  heart  wben  I  heard 
her  contradicting  her  own  perfections." 

"  Canalis  .supported  her." 

"  If  she  had  more  self-love  than  heart 
there  would  be  nothing  for  a  man  to  re- 
gret in  losing  her,"  answered  La  Briere. 

At  this  moment  Modestc,  followed  by 
Canalis,  who  had  lost  the  rubber,  came 
out  with  her  father  and  Madame  Dumay 
to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  tlie  stariy 
night.  While  his  daughter  walked  about 
with  the  poet,  Charles  Mignonleft  her  and 
came  up  to  La  Briere. 

"  Your  friend,  monsieur,  ought  to  have 
been  a  lawyer,"  he  said,  smiling  and  look- 
ing attentively  at  the  j'oung  man. 


434 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


"  You  musl  not  judge  a  poet  as  severely' 
as  you  would  an  ordinary  man — as  you 
would  me,  for  example,  Monsieur  le 
Comte,"  said  La  Briere.  ''A  poet  has  a 
mission.  He  is  obliged  by  his  nature  to 
see  the  poetry  of  questions,  just  as  he 
expresses  that  of  things.  When  you 
tliink  him  inconsistent  with  himself,  he 
is  really  faithful  to  his  vocation.  He  is  a 
painter  copying  with  equal  truth  a  Ma- 
donna and  a  courtesan.  Moliere  is  as 
true  to  nature  in  his  old  men  as  in  his 
young  ones,  and  Moliere "s  judgment  was 
assuredly  a  healthy  one.  These  wittj' 
paradoxes  miglitbe  dangerous  for  second- 
rate  minds,  but  they  have  no  real  influ- 
ence on  the  character  of  true,  great  men." 

Charles  Mignon  pressed  La  Briere's 
hand. 

"That  adr^ptabilitj-,  however,  leads  a 
man  to  excuse  himself  in  his  own  eyes  for 
actions  that  arc  diametrically  opposed  to 
each  other  ;  above  all,  in  politics." 

"Ah,  mademoiselle,"  Canalis  was  at 
this  moment  saj'ing,  in  a  caressing  voice, 
in  rcph'  to  a  malicious  remark  from 
Modesto,  '•  do  not  think  that  a  multi- 
plicity of  emotions  can  in  any  way  lessen 
the  strength  of  feelings.  Poets,  even 
more  than  other  men,  must  needs  love 
with  constancy  and  faith.  You  must  not 
be  jealous  of  what  is  called  the  Muse. 
Happy  is  the  wife  of  a  man  whose  days 
are  occupied.  If  you  heard  the  complaints 
of  women  who  have  to  endure  the  burden 
of  an  idle  husband,  either  a  man  without 
duties,  or  one  so  rich  as  to  have  nothing 
to  do,  j'ou  would  know  that  the  highest 
happiness  of  a  Parisian  wife  is  freedom — 
the  right  to  rule  in  her  own  home.  Now, 
we  writers  and  men  of  functions  and  occu- 
pations, we  leave  the  scepter  to  our  wives; 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  descend  to  the 
tyranny  of  little  minds ;  we  have  some- 
thing better  to  do.  If  I  ever  marry — 
wliich  I  assure  j'ou  is  a  catastrophe  very 
remote  at  the  present  moment — I  should 
wish  my  wife  to  enjoy  complete  moral 
freedom." 

Canalis  talked  on,  displaying  the 
warmth  of  his  fanc\-  and  all  his  graces, 
for  Modestc's  benefit,  as  lie  spoke  of  love, 
marriage,  and   the  adoration  of  women, 


until  Monsieur  Mignon,  who  had  rejoined 
them,  seized  the  opportunity  of  a  slight 
Ijause  to  take  his  daughter's  arm  and 
lead  her  up  to  Ernest  de  la  Briere,  whom 
he  had  been  advising  to  seek  an  open  ex- 
planation with  her. 

"Mademoiselle, "said  Ernest,  in  a  voice 
that  was  scarcely  his  own,  "  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  me  to  remain  any  longer  under 
the  weight  of  your  displeasure.  I  do  not 
defend  mj-self ;  I  do  not  seek  to  justify 
vay  conduct ;  I  desire  only  to  make  you 
see  that  before  I'eading  your  most  flatter- 
ing letter,  addressed  to  the  individual  and 
no  longer  to  the  poet — the  last  which  j'ou 
sent  to  me — I  wished,  and  I  told  you  in 
my  note  written  at  Havre,  that  I  wished 
to  correct  the  error  under  which  you  were 
acting.  All  the  feelings  that  I  have  had 
the  happiness  of  expressing  to  you  are 
sincere.  A  hope  dawned  on  me  in  Paris 
when  3'our  father  called  himself  poor — but 
now,  if  all  is  lost,  if  nothing  is  left  for  mo 
but  endless  regrets,  whj'  should  I  stay 
here  where  all  is  torture  ?  Let  me  carry 
aw^ay  with  me  one  smile,  to  live  forever 
in  my  heart." 

"Monsieur,"  answered  Modeste,  who 
appeared  cold  and  absent-minded,  "  I  am 
not  the  mistress  of  this  house ;  but  I  cer- 
tainly should  deeply  regret  to  retain  any 
one  where  he  finds  neither  pleasure  nor 
happiness." 

She  left  La  Briere  and  took  Madame 
Dumay's  arm  to  re-enter  the  house.  A 
few  moments  later  all  the  actors  in  this 
domestic  scene,  once  more  assembled  in 
the  salon,  were  surprised  to  see  Modeste 
sitting  beside  the  Due  d'Herouville  and 
coquetting  with  him  like  an  accomplished 
woman  of  the  world.  She  watched  his 
plaj^  gave  him  advice  when  he  asked  for 
it,  and  found  occasion  to  say  flattering 
things  by  ranking  the  merits  of  noble 
birth  with  those  of  genius  and  beauty. 
Canalis  thought  he  knew  the  reason  of 
this  change  ;  he  had  tried  to  pique  Mo- 
deste by  calling  marriage  a  catastrophe, 
and  showing  that  he  was  aloof  from  it ; 
but  like  others  who  play  with  Are,  he  had 
burned  his  fingers.  Modeste's  pride  and 
her  present  disdain  frightened  him,  and 
he  endeavored  to  recover  his  ground,  ex- 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


435 


hibiting  a  jealousy  which  was  all  the 
more  visible  because  it  was  artificial. 
Modeste,  implacable  as  the  angels,  tasted 
the  sweets  of  power,  and,  naturally' 
enough,  abused  it.  The  Due  d'Herou- 
ville  had  never  known  such  a  happy 
evening ;  a  woman  smiled  on  him  !  At 
eleven  o'clock,  an  unheard-of  hour  at  the 
Chalet,  the  three  suitors  took  their  leave 
— the  duke  thinking  Modeste  charming, 
Canalis  belie^^ng  her  excessively  coquet- 
tish, and  La  Briere  heart-broken  by  her 
cruelty. 

For  eight  days  the  heiress  continued  to 
be  to  her  three  lovers  very  much  ^vhat 
she  had  been  during  that  evening ;  so 
that  the  poet  appeared  to  carry  the  day 
against  his  rivals,  in  spite  of  freaks  and 
caprices  which  from  time  to  time  gave 
the  Due  d'Herouville  a  little  hope.  The 
disrespect  she  showed  to  her  father,  and 
the  great  liberties  she  tpok  with  him  ;  her 
impatience  with  her  blind  mother,  to 
whom  she  seemed  to  grudge  the  little 
services  which  had  once  been  the  delight 
of  her  filial  piety — seemed  the  result  of  a 
capricious  nature  and  a  heedless  gayety 
indulged  from  childhood.  When  Modeste 
went  too  far,  she  turned  I'ound  and  open- 
ly took  lierself  to  task,  ascribing  her  im- 
pertinence and  levity  to  a  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence. She  acknowledged  to  the  duke 
and  Canalis  her  distaste  for  obedience, 
and  professed  to  regard  it  as  an  obstacle 
to  her  marriage ;  thus  questioning  into 
the  nature  of  her  suitors,  after  the  man- 
ner of  those  who  dig  into  the  earth  in 
search  of  metals,  coal,  tufa,  or  water. 

"I  shall  never,"  she  said,  the  evening 
before  the  day  on  which  the  family  were 
to  move  into  the  villa,  "find  a  husband 
who  will  put  up  with  my  caprices  as  vay 
father  does :  his  kindness  never  flags. 
And  no  one  will  ever  be  as  indulgent  to 
me  as  my  precious  mother." 

"They  know  that  you  love  them, 
mademoiselle,"  said  La  Briere. 

"You  may  be  very  sure,  mademoiselle, 
that  your  husband  will  know  the  full 
value  of  his  treasure,"  added  the  duke. 

"You  have  more  than  enough  spirit 
and  resolution  to  discipline  a  husband," 
cried  Canalis,  laughing. 


Modeste  smiled  as  Henri  IV.  must 
have  smiled  after  drawing  out  the  char- 
acters of  his  three  principal  ministers, 
for  the  benefit  of  a  foreign  embassador, 
by  means  of  three  answers  to  an  insidious 
question. 

On  the  day  of  the  dinner,  Modeste, 
drawn  on  by  the  preference  she  bestowed 
on  Canalis,  walked  alone  with  him  up  and 
down  the  graveled  space  which  lay  be- 
tween the  house  and  the  lawn.  From 
the  gestures  of  the  poet,  and  the  air  and 
manner  of  the  young  heii'ess,  it  was  easy 
to  see  that  she  was  listening  favorably  to 
him.  The  two  Demoiselles  d'Herouville 
hastened  to  interrupt  the  scandalous 
tete-a-tete ;  and  with  the  natural  clever- 
ness of  women  under  such  circumstances, 
they  turned  the  conversation  on  the  court, 
and  the  distinction  of  an  appointment  un- 
der the  crown,  explaining  the  difference 
that  existed  between  appointments  in  the 
household  of  the  king  and  those  of  the 
crown.  They  tried  to  intoxicate  Modeste 's 
mind  by  appealing  to  her  pride,  and  de- 
scribing one  of  the  highest  stations  to 
which  a  woman  could  aspire. 

"To  have  a  duke  for  a  son,"  said  the 
elder  ladj',  "  is  an  actual  advantage.  The 
title  is  a  fortune  that  we  secure  to  our 
children  without  the  possibilit3-  of  loss." 

"How  is  it,  then,"  said  Canalis,  dis- 
pleased at  his  tete-a-tete  being  thus 
broken  in  upon,  "that  Monsieui'  le  Due 
has  had  so  little  success  in  a  matter 
where  his  title  would  seem  to  be  of 
special  service  to  him  ?  " 

The  two  ladies  cast  a  look  at  Canalis  as 
full  of  venom  as  the  tooth  of  a  snake,  and 
they  were  so  disconcerted  by  Modeste's 
amused  smile  that  they  were  actually 
unable  to  reply. 

"Monsieur  le  Due  has  never  blamed 
you,"  she  said  to  Canalis,  "for  the 
humilitj'-  with  Avhich  you  bear  your  fame  ; 
why  should  you  attack  him  for  his  mod- 
esty?" 

"  Besides,  we  have  never  yet  met  a 
woman  worthy  of  my  nephew's  rank," 
said  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville.  "Some 
had  oii\y  the  wealth  of  the  position : 
others,  without  fortune,  had  the  wit  and 
birth,     I  must  admit  tiiat  we  have  done 


43G 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


well  to  wait  till  God  granted  us  an  oppor- 
timit3'  to  meet  cue  in  whom  we  find  the 
noble  blood,  the  mind,  and  fortune  of  a 
Ducliesse  d'Hcrouville." 

••JIj-  dear  Modeste,"  said  Helene 
d'Herouvillc,  leading-  her  new  friend 
apart,  "there  are  a  thousand  Barons  de 
Canalis  in  the  kingdom,  just  as  there 
are  a  hundred  poels  in  Paris,  who  are 
worth  as  much  as  he  ;  he  is  so  little  of  a 
great  man  that  even  I,  a  poor  girl  forced 
to  take  the  veil  for  want  of  a  dot,  I  would 
not  take  liim.  You  don't  know  what  a 
young  man  is  who  has  been  paraded  for 
ten  j-cars  by  a  Ducliesse  de  Chaulieu. 
No  one  l)ut  an  old  woman  of  sixty  could 
put  up  with  the  little  ailments  of  whicli, 
they  say,  the  great  poet  is  always  com- 
plaining— a  habit  which,  in  Louis  XIV., 
became  a  perfecth'  insupportable  annoy- 
ance. It  is  true  the  duchess  does  not 
suffer  from  it  as  much  as  a  wife,  who 
would  have  him  always  about  her." 

Then,  practicing  a  well-known  maneu- 
ver to  her  sex,  Helene  d"Herouville  re- 
peated in  a  low  voice  all  the  calumnies 
which  women  jealous  of  the  Ducliesse  de 
Chaulieu  were  in  the  habit  of  spreading 
about  the  poet.  This  little  incident,  com- 
mon as  it  is  in  the  intercourse  of  women, 
will  serve  to  show  how  hot  was  the  chase 
after  Modestc's  wealth.    . 

Ten  days  saw  a  great  change  in  the 
opinions  at  the  Chalet  as  to  the  three 
suitors  for  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie's 
hand.  This  change,  which  was  much  to 
the  disadvantage  of  Canalis,  came  about 
through  considerations  of  a  nature  which 
ought  to  make  the  holders  of  smj  kind  of 
fame  pause,  and  reflect.  No  one  can  deny, 
if  we  remember  the  passion  with  which 
people  seek  for  autographs,  that  public 
curiosity  is  greatly  excited  by  celebrity. 
Evidently  most  provincials  never  form  an 
e.Kact  idea  in  their  own  minds  of  the  way 
in  which  illustrious  Parisians  put  on  their 
cravats,  walk  on  the  boulevard,  stand 
gaping  at  nothing,  or  eat  a  cutlet;  be- 
cause, no  sooner  do  they  perceive  a  man 
clothed  in  the  sunbeams  of  fashion  or 
resplendent  with  some  dignity  that  is 
more  or  less  fugitive  (though  always  en- 
vied) than  thej'  cry  out,  "Look  at  that !" 


"How  queer!"  and  other  depreciatory 
exclamations.  In  a  word,  the  mysterious 
charm  that  attaches  to  every  kind  of 
fame,  even  that  which  is  most  justly  due, 
never  lasts.  It  is,  especially  with  super- 
ficial people  who  are  envious  or  sarcastic, 
a  sensation  which  passes  off  \vith  the  ra- 
pidity of  lightning,  and  never  returns.  It 
would  seem  as  though  glory,  like  the  sun, 
hot  and  luminous  at  a  distance,  were  cold 
as  the  summit  of  an  alp  when  it  is  ap- 
proached. Perhaps  man  is  only  really 
great  to  his  peers  ;  perhaps  the  defects  in- 
hei-ent  in  his  constitution  disappear  sooner 
to  the  eyes  of  his  equals  than  to  those  of 
vulgar  admirers.  A  poet,  if  he  would 
please  in  ordinary  life,  must  put  on  the  ly- 
ing graces  of  those  who  are  able  to  make 
their  insignificance  forgotten  by  charming 
manners  and  complaisant  speeches.  The 
poet  of  the  Fauboug  Saint  Germain,  who 
did  not  choose  to  bow  before  this  social 
dictum,  was  made  before  long  to  feel  that 
an  insulting  provincial  indifference  had 
succeeded  to  the  dazed  fascination  of  the 
earlier  evenings.  The  prodigality  of  his 
wit  and  wisdom  had  produced  upon  these 
worthy  souls  somewhat  the  effect  which 
a  shopful  of  glassware  produces  on  the 
eye ;  in  other  words,  the  fire  and  bril- 
liancy of  Canalis's  eloquence  soon  wearied 
people  who,  to  use  their  own  words, 
"cared  more  for  the  solid." 

Forced  after  a  while  to  behave  like  an 
ordinary  man,  the  poet  found  numerous 
unexpected  stumbling-blocks  on  ground 
where  La  Briere  had  ah'eady  won  the  suf- 
frage of  the  worthy  people  who  at  first 
had  thought  him  sulky.  They  felt  the 
need  of  compensating  themselves  for  Ca- 
nalis's reputation  by  preferring  his  friend. 
The  best  of  men  are  made  thus.  The 
simple  and  straightforwai'd  young  fellow 
jarred  no  one's  self-love  ;  coming  to  know 
him  better  they  discovered  his  heart,  his 
modesty,  his  silent  and  sure  discretion, 
and  his  excellent  bearing.  The  Due  d 'He- 
ron viUe  considered  him,  as  a  political 
element,  far  above  Canalis.  The  poet, 
ill-balanced,  ambitious,  and  restless  as 
Tasso,  loved  luxury  and  grandeur,  and 
ran  into  debt ;  while  the  young  law- 
yer, whose  character  was    equable  and 


MODEST E    MIGXOX. 


437 


well-balanced,  lived  soberlj%  was  useful 
without  proclaiming  it,  awaited  rewards 
without  begging  for  them,  and  saved  his 
money. 

Canalis  had  moreover  laid  himself  open 
in  a  special  way  to  the  bourgeois  eyes 
that  were  watching  him.  For  two  or 
three  days  he  had  shown  signs  of  impa- 
tience ;  he  had  given  way  to  depression, 
to  states  of  melancholy  without  apparent 
reason,  to  those  capricious  changes  of 
temper  which  are  the  natural  results  of 
the  nervous  temperament  of  poets.  These 
originalities  (the  provincial  term)  came 
from  the  uneasiness  caused  him  by  his 
conduct  toward  the  Duchessc  de  Chaulieu, 
which  he  was  daily  less  able  to  explain. 
He  knew  he  ought  to  write  to  her,  but 
could  not  resolve  on  doing  so.  All  these 
fluctuations  were  carefully  remarked  and 
commented  on  by  the  gentle  American, 
and  the  excellent  Madame  Latournelle. 
Canalis  felt  the  effect  of  tliese  discussions 
without  being  able  to  explain  them.  The 
attention  paid  to  him  was  not  the  same, 
tlie  faces  surrounding  him  no  longer  wore 
the  entranced  look  of  the  earlier  days ; 
whUe  at  the  same  time  Ernest  was  evi- 
dently gaining  ground. 

For  the  last  two  days  the  poet  had  en- 
deavored to  fascinate  Modesto  only,  and 
he  took  advantage  of  every  moment  when 
he  found  himself  alone  with  her,  to  weave 
the  web  of  passionate  language  around 
his  love.  Modeste's  blush,  as  she  list- 
ened to  him  on  the  occasion  we  have  just 
mentioned,  showed  the  Demoiselles  d"He- 
rouville  the  pleasure  with  which  she  was 
listening  to  sweet  conceits  sweetlj'  said  ; 
and  they,  uneasj^  at  the  poet's  progress, 
had  immediate  recourse  to  the  ultima 
ratio  of  women  in  such  cases,  namely, 
those  calumnies  which  seldom  miss  their 
object.  Accordingly,  when  the  party 
met  at  the  dinner-table  the  poet  saw  a 
cloud  on  the  brow  of  his  idol :  he  knew 
that  Mademoiselle  d"Herouville's  malig- 
nity allowed  him  to  lose  no  time,  and  he 
resolved  to  offer  himself  as  a  husband  at 
the  first  moment  when  he  could  find  him- 
self alone  with  Modeste. 

Overhearing  a  few  acid  though  polite 
remarks  exchanged  between  the  poet  and 


the  two  noble  ladies,  Gobenheira  nudged 
Butscha  with  his  elbow,  and  said  in  an 
undertone,  motioning  toward  the  poet 
and  the  grand  equerry — 

'•  They'll  demolish  one  another  !  " 
'•  Canalis  has  genius  enough  to  demoUsh 
himself  all  alone,"  answered  the  dwarf. 


XXII. 


DUEING  the  dinner,  which  was  mag- 
nificent and  admirably  well  sers'ed,  the 
duke  obtained  a  signal  advantage  over 
Canalis.  Modeste,  who  on  the  previous 
night  had  received  her  habit  and  other 
equestrian  equipments,  spoke  of  taking 
rides  about  the  country.  A  turn  of  the 
conversation  led  her  to  express  the  wish 
to  see  a  hunt  with  hounds,  a  pleasure  she 
had  never  yet  enjoyed.  The  duke  at  once 
proposed  to  arrange  a  hunt  in  one  of  the 
crown  forests,  which  lay  a  few  leagues 
from  Havre.  Thanks  to  his  intimacy 
with  the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  Master  of 
the  Hunt,  he  saw  his  chance  of  displaying 
an  almost  regal  pomp  before  Modeste's 
eyes,  and  alluring  her  with  a  glimpse  of 
court  fascinations,  to  which  she  could  be 
introduced  by  marriage.  Glances  were 
exchanged  between  the  duke  and  the  two 
Damoisellcs  d'HerouviUe,  which  plainly 
said,  "The  heiress  is  ours!"  and  the 
poet,  who  detected  them,  and  who  had 
nothing  but  his  personal  splendors  to  de- 
pend on,  determined  to  hasten  and  obtain 
some  pledge  of  affection  at  once.  Mo- 
deste, on  the  other  hand,  half-frightened 
at  being  thus  pushed  beyond  her  inten- 
tions by  the  d"Herouvilles,  walked  rather 
markedly  apart  with  Melchior,  when  the 
company  adjourned  to  the  park  after 
dinner.  With  the  pardonable  curiosity 
of  a  young  girl,  she  allowed  him  to  sus- 
pect the  calumnies  which  Helene  had 
poured  into  her  ears ;  but  on  an  exclama- 
tion from  Canalis  she  begged  him  to  keep 
silence  about  them,  and  he  promised  to 
do  so. 

•'•'  These  stabs  of  the  tongue,"  he  said, 
"are  considered  fair  in  the  great  world. 
They  shock  your  upright  nature  ;  but  as 
for  me,   I  laugh  at   them ;   I  am  even 


438 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


pleased.  These  ladies  must  feel  that  the 
duke's  interests  are  in  great  peril,  when 
tliey  have  recourse  to  such  warfare." 

Makitife'  the  most  of  the  advantage  Mo- 
desto had  thus  given  him,  Canalis  brought 
to  his  defense  such  warmth,  such  eager- 
ness, and  a  passion  so  exquisitely  ex- 
pressed, as  he  thanked  her  for  a  confi- 
dence in  which  he  could  venture  to  see  the 
dawn  of  love,  that  slie  found  herself  sud- 
denly as  much  compromised  with  the  poet 
as  she  had  feared  to  be  with  the  grand 
equerry.  Canalis,  feeling  the  necessity 
of  boldness,  declared  himself  plainly.  He 
uttered  vows  and  protestations  in  which 
his  poetry  shone  like  a  moon,  invoked  for 
the  occasion,  and  illuminating  his  allu- 
sions to  the  beauty  of  his  mistress  and 
charms  of  her  evening  dress.  This  coun- 
terfeit enthusiasm,  in  which  the  night. 
the  foliage,  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
and  Nature  herself  played  a  part,  carried 
the  eager  lover  beyond  all  bounds ;  for 
he  dwelt  on  his  disinterestedness,  and 
revamped,  in  his  own  charming  style, 
Diderot's  famous  apostrophe  to  "Sophie 
and  fifteen  hundred  francs!"  and  the 
well-worn  "  love  in  a  cottage  "  of  every 
lover  who  knows  perfectly  well  the  length 
of  the  father-in-law's  purse. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  after  listen- 
ing with  delight  to  the  melody  of  this 
concerto,  so  well  executed  upon  •'  o  well- 
known  theme,"  "the  freedom  granted 
to  me  by  my  parents  has  permitted  me 
to  listen  to  you ;  but  it  is  to  them  that 
you  must  address  yourself." 

"But,"  exclaimed  Canalis.  "tell  me 
that  if  I  obtain  their  consent,  you  will 
ask  nothing-  better  than  to  obej'them." 

"  I  know  beforehand,"  she  replied, 
"that  my  father  has  certain  fancies 
which  may  wound  the  just  pride  of  an 
old  family  like  yours.  He  wishes  to 
have  his  own  title  and  name  borne  by 
his  grandsons." 

"  All  !  dear  Modeste,  what  sacrifices 
would  I  not  make  to  commit  my  life  to 
the  guardian  care  of  an  angel  like  you." 

"  You  will  permit  me  not  to  decide  in  a 
moment  the  fate  of  my  whole  life,"  she 
said,  turning  to  rejoin  the  Demoiselles 
d'Herouville. 


Those  noble  ladies  were  just  then  en- 
gaged in  flattering  the  vanity  of  little 
Latournelle,  intending  to  win  him  over 
to  their  interests.  Mademoiselle  d'He- 
rouville, to  whom  we  shall  in  future 
confine  the  family  name,  to  distinguish 
her  from  her  niece  Helene,  was  giving 
the  notary  to  understand  that  the  post 
of  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Havre, 
which  Charles  X.  would  bestow  as  she 
desired,  was  an  office  worthy  of  his  legal 
talent  and  his  well-known  probity.  But- 
scha,  meanwhile,  who  had  been  walking 
about  with  La  Briere,  was  greatly 
alarmed  at  the  progress  Canalis  was 
evidently  making,  and  he  waylaid  Mo- 
deste at  the  lower  step  of  the  portico 
when  the  whole  party  returned  to  the 
house  to  endure  the  torments  of  their 
inevitable  whist. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  in  a  low  voice, 
"I  hope  that  you  do  not  yet  call  him 
Melchior." 

"■  I'm  very  near  it,  mj^  Black  Dwarf," 
she  said,  with  a  smile  that  might  have 
made  an  angel  fall. 

"  Good  God  ! "  exclaimed  Butscha, 
letting  fall  his  hands,  which  struck  the 
marble  steps. 

"  Well  !  and  isn't  he  worth  more  than 
that  spiteful  and  gloomj'  secretary  in 
whom  you  take  such  an  interest  ?  "  she 
retorted,  assuming,  at  the  mere  thought 
of  Ernest,  the  haughty  manner  whose 
secret  belongs  exclusively^  to  young  girls 
— as  if  their  virginity  lent  them  wings  to 
fly  to  heaven.  "Pray,  would  your  httle 
La  Briere  accept  me  without  a  fortune  ?  " 
she  said,  after  a  pause. 

"Ask  your  father,"  replied  Butscha. 
walking  a  few  steps  from  the  house,  to 
get  Modeste  at  a  safe  distance  from  th.e 
windows.  "  Listen  to  me,  mademoiselle. 
You  know  that  he  who  speaks  to  j'ou  is 
ready  to  give  not  only  his  life  but  his 
honor  for  you,  at  any  moment,  and  at 
all  times.  Therefore  you  may  believe  in 
him ;  you  can  confide  to  him  that  which 
you  may  not,  perhaps,  be  willing  to  say 
to  your  father.  Tell  me,  has  that  sublime 
Canalis  been  making  you  the  disinterested 
offer  that  you  now  fling  as  a  reproach  at 
poor  Ernest  ?  " 


MOD  EST E    MIQNON. 


439 


"Yes." 

"  Do  you  believe  it  ?  " 

'•'That  cxuestion,  my  manikin,"  slie  re- 
plied, giving-  him  one  of  the  ten  or  a 
dozen  nicknames  she  had  invented  for 
him,  "strikes  me  as  undervaluing-  the 
strength  of  my  self-love." 

"  Ah,  you  are  laughing,  my  dear  Made- 
moiselle Modeste ;  then  there's  no  dan- 
ger :  I  hope  you  are  only  making  a  fool 
of  him." 

"■  Pray  what  would  you  think  of  me. 
Monsieur  Butscha,  if  I  allowed  myself  to 
make  fun  of  those  who  do  me  the  honor  to 
wish  to  marry  me  ?  You  ought  to  Icnow, 
Master  Jean,  that  even  if  a  girl  affects 
to  .scorn  the  most  despicable  attentions, 
she  is  always  flattered  by  them." 

"Then  I  flatter  you?"  said  the  young 
man,  looking  up  at  her  with  a  face  that 
was  illuminated  like  a  city  for  a  festival. 

"You?  "she  said;  "you  give  me  the 
most  precious  of  all  friendshiiDs — a  feeling 
as  disinterested  as  that  of  a  mother  for 
her  child.  Compai-e  yourself  to  no  one  ; 
for  even  my  father  is  obliged  to  be  de- 
voted to  me."  She  paused.  "I  cannot 
say  that  I  love  you,  in  the  sense  which 
men  give  to  that  word,  but  what  I  do  give 
you  is  eternal  and  can  know  no  change." 

"Then,"  said  Butscha,  stooping-  to  piclv 
up  a  pebble  that  he  might  kiss  the  hem 
of  her  garment,  "suffer  me  to  watch 
over  you  as  a  dragon  guards  a  treasure. 
The  poet  was  covering  you  just  now  with 
the  lace-work  of  his  precious  phrases,  the 
tinsel  of  his  promises  ;  he  chanted  his  love 
on  the  best  strings  of  his  Ij're,  did  he  not  ? 
If,  as  soon  as  this  noble  lover  finds  out 
how  small  your  fortune  is,  he  makes  a 
sudden  change  in  his  behavior,  and  is  cold 
and  embarrassed,  will  you  still  marry 
him?  shall  you  still  esteem  him?"' 

"He  would  be  another  Francisque  Al- 
thor,"  she  said,  with  a  gesture  of  bitter 
disgust. 

"  Let  me  have  the  pleasure  of  produc- 
ing that  change  of  scene,"  said  Butscha. 
"  Not  only  shall  it  be  sudden,  but  I  believe 
I  can  afterwai'd  change  it  back  and  make 
your  poet  as  loving  as  before — nay,  it  is 
possible  to  make  him  blow  alternately  hot 
and  cold  upon  your  heart,  just  as  grace- 


fully as  he  has  talked  on  both  sides  of  an 
ai'gument  in  one  evening  without  ever 
finding  it  out." 

"  If  you  are  right,"  she  said,  "who  can 
be  trusted  ?  " 

"  One  who  truly  loves  you." 

"  The  little  duke  ?  " 

Butscha  looked  at  Modeste..  The  pair 
walked  some  distance  in  silence ;  the  girl 
was  impenetrable  and  not  an  eyelash 
quivered . 

"  Mademoiselle,  permit  me  to  be  the 
exponent  of  the  thoughts  that  are  lying 
at  the  bottom  of  your  heart  like  sea- 
mosses  under  the  waves,  and  which  you 
do  not  choose  to  gather  up." 

"  Eh  !  "  said  Modeste,  "'  so  my  intimate 
fi'iend  and  counselor  thinks  himself  a  mir- 
ror, does  he?  " 

"Xo,  an  echo,"  he  answered,  with  a 
gestui-e  of  sublime  humility.  "The  duke 
loves  you,  but  he  loves  you  too  much.  If 
I,  a  dwarf,  have  understood  the  infinite 
delicacy  of  your  heart,  it  would  be  repug- 
nant to  you  to  bo  worshiped  like  a  saint 
in  her  shrine.  You  are  eminently  a  wo- 
man ;  you  want  neither  a  man  perpetually 
at  your  feet  of  whom  j'ou  are  eternally 
sure,  nor  a  selfish  egoist  like  Canalis, 
who  will  always  prefer  himself  to  you. 
Why?  ah,  that  I  don't  know.  But  I  will 
naake  myself  a  woman,  an  old  woman,  to 
find  out  the  meaning  of  the  plan  which  I 
have  read  in  your  eyes,  and  which  per- 
haps is  in  the  heart  of  everj'  girl.  Never- 
theless, in  your  great  soul  j-ou  feel  the 
need  of  worshiping.  When  a  man  is  at 
your  knees,  you  cannot  put  j-ourself  at 
his.  You  cannot  go  far  in  that  waj^,  as 
Voltaire  might  say.  The  little  duke  has 
too  many  genuflections  in  his  moral  being 
and  the  poet  has  too  few — indeed,  I  might 
say,  none  at  all.  I  have  guessed  the  mis- 
chief concealed  in  j^our  smiles  when  you 
talk  to  the  grand  equerry,  and  when  he 
talks  to  you  and  you  answer  him.  You 
would  never  be  unhappj-  with  the  duke, 
and  everybody  will  approve  your  choice, 
if  you  do  choose  him  ;  but  you  will  never 
love  him.  The  ice  of  egotism,  and  the 
burning  heat  of  ecstasy  both  produce  in- 
difference in  the  heart  of  every  woman. 
No  such  peri^etual  worship  will  give  you 


440 


THE    HUM  AX    COMEDY. 


tho  infinite  dclighuS  which  j'ou  are  dream- 
ing' of  in  marriage — in  some  marriage 
•where  obedience  will  be  j'our  pride,  where 
noble  little  sacrifices  can  be  made  and 
hidden,  where  the  heart  is  full  of  anxie- 
ties without  a  cause,  and  successes  are 
awaited  with  eager  hope,  where  each  new 
chance  for  magnanimity  is  hailed  with 
■joj%  where  souls  are  comprehended  to 
their  inmost  recesses,  and  where  the  wo- 
man protects  with  her  love  the  man  who 
protects  her." 

"  You  are  a  sorcerer  ! '"'  exclaimed  Mo- 
deste. 

"Neither  will  you  find  that  sweet 
equality  of  sentiments,  that  continual 
sharing  of  each  other's  life,  that  cer- 
tainty of  pleasing  which  makes  marriage 
toleral.le,  if  you  take  Canalis  —a  man 
who  thinks  of  himself  only,  whose  '  I '  is 
the  one  string  to  his  lute,  whose  mind  is 
so  fixed  on  himself  that  he  has  hitherto 
taken  no  notice  of  your  father  or  tho 
duke — a  man  of  second-rate  ambitions,  to 
whom  j'our  dignity  and  your  devotion 
will  matter  nothing,  who  will  make  j-ou 
a  mere  appendage  to  his  household,  nnd 
who  alreadj'^  insults  you  by  his  indiffer- 
ence to  3'our  behavior ;  j-cs,  if  you  per- 
mitted 3'ourself  to  go  so  far  as  to  box 
your  mother's  ears,  Canalis  would  shut 
his  eyes  to  it,  and  deny  your  crime  even 
to  himself,  because  he  thirsts  for  your 
money.  And  so,  mademoiselle,  when  I 
spoke  of  the  man  who  truly  loves  you  I 
was  not  thinking  of  the  great  poet  who 
is  nothing  but  a  little  comedian,  nor  of 
the  duke,  who  might  be  a  good  marriage 
for  you,  but  never  a  husband — " 

"  Butscha,  my  heart  is  a  blank  page 
on  which  you  are  yourself  writing  all 
that  j'ou  read  there,"  cried  Modeste,  in- 
terrupting him.  "  You  are  carried  away 
by  j'our  provincial  hati'ed  for  everything 
that  obliges  you  to  look  higher  than  your 
own  head.  You  can't  forgive  a  poet  for 
being  a  statesman,  for  possessing  the 
^ft  of  speech,  for  having  a  noble  future 
before  him — and  you  caluumiate  his  in- 
tentions." 

"His! — mademoiselle,  he  will  turn  his 
back  upon  you  with  the  baseness  of  an 
Althor." 


"  Make  him  play  that  pretty  little  corn- 
ed}', and — " 

"That  I  will !  ho  shall  play  it  through 
and  through  within  three  days — on  Wed- 
nesday —  recollect,  Wednesdaj'  !  Until 
then,  mademoiselle,  amuse  yourself  by 
listening  to  the  little  tunes  of  the  lyre,  so 
that  the  discords  and  the  false  notes  may 
come  out  all  the  more  distinctly." 

Modeste  ran  gaylj'  back  to  the  salon, 
where  La  Briere,  who  had  been  seated 
by  a  window,  where  he  had  doubtless 
been  watching  his  idol,  I'oso  to  his  feet  as 
if  a  groom  of  the  chambers  had  suddenly 
annoimced,  "  The  Queen."  It  was  a 
movement  of  spontaneous  respect,  full  of 
that  living  eloquence  that  lies  in  gesture 
even  more  than  in  speech.  Spoken  love 
cannot  compare  with  acts  of  love ;  and 
every  young  girl  of  twenty  has  the  wis- 
dom of  fifty  in  applying  the  axiom.  In 
that  lies  the  great  secret  of  attraction. 
Instead  of  looking  Modesto  in  the  face,  as 
Canalis,  who  paid  her  public  homage, 
would  have  done,  the  neglected  lover  fol- 
lowed her  with  a  furtive  look  between  his 
eyelids,  humble  as  Butscha,  and  almost 
timid.  The  young  heiress  observed  it,  as 
she  took  her  place  by  Canalis,  in  whose 
game  she  proceeded  to  interest  herself. 
During  a  conversation  which  ensued.  La 
Briere  heard  Modeste  say  to  her  father 
that  she  should  ride  out  for  tlie  first  time 
on  the  following  Wednesday  ;  and  she 
also  reminded  him  that  she  had  no  whip 
in  keeping  with  her  new  equipments.  The 
young  man  flung  a  lightning-  glance  at  the 
dwarf,  and  a  few  minutes  later  the  two 
were  pacing  tho  terrace. 

"  It  is  nine  o'clock,"  cried  Ernest.  "  I 
shall  start  for  Paris  at  full  gallop ;  I  can 
get  there  to-morrow  morning  by  ten.  My 
dear  Butscha,  from  you  she  will  accept 
anything,  for  she  is  attached  to  you  ;  let 
me  give  her  a  riding-whip  in  your  name. 
If  you  will  do  me  this  immense  kindness 
3'ou  shall  have  not  only  my  frindship  but 
my  devotion." 

'•'  Ah,  you  are  very  fortunate,"  said 
Butscha,  ruefully ;  "you  have  money." 

"Tell  Canalis  not  to  expect  me,  and  let 
him  invent  some  pretext  to  account  for 
my  absence." 


MOD  EST E    MIGSOX. 


441 


An  hour  later  Ernest  had  ridden  out  of 
Havre.  He  reached  Paris  in  twelve  hours, 
where  his  first  act  was  to  secure  a  place 
in  the  mail-coach  for  Havre  on  the  follow- 
ing- evening-.  Then  he  went  to  three  of 
the  chief  jewelers  in  Paris  and  compaz'ed 
all  the  whip-handles  that  they  could  offer ; 
he  was  in  search  of  some  artistic  treasure 
that  was  regally  superb.  He  found  one 
at  last,  made  by  Stidmann  for  a  Russian, 
who  was  unable  to  pay  for  it  when  finished 
— a  fox-head  in  g-old,  with  a  ruby  of  ex- 
oi'bitant  value ;  all  his  savings  went  into 
the  purchase,  the  cost  of  which  was  seven 
thous-md  francs.  Ernest  g-ave  a  drawing- 
of  the  ai'ms  of  La  Bastie,  and  allowed  the 
shop-people  twenty  hours  to  engrave  them 
in  place  of  those  which  were  already  there. 
This  handle,  a  masterpiece  of  delicate 
■workmanship,  was  fitted  to  an  india-rub- 
ber wliip  and  put  into  a  morocco  case 
lined  with  A-elvet,  on  which  two  M.'s  in- 
terlaced were  stamped  in  gold . 

La  Bi'iere  got  back  to  Havre  by  the 
mail-coach  Wednesday  morning  in  time 
to  breakfast  with  Canalis.  The  poet  had 
concealed  his  secretar^'^s  absence  by  de- 
claring that  he  was  busy  with  some  work 
sent  ti'om  Paris.  Butscha,  who  met  La 
Briere  at  the  (oach-door,  took  the  box 
containing-  the  pi'ccious  work  of  art  to 
Francoise  Cochet,  with  insti'uctions  to 
plac '  it  on  Modeste's  dressing-table. 

"  Of  course  you  will  accompany  Made- 
moiselle Modesto  on  her  ride  to-day  ?  " 
said  Butscha,  when  he  went  to  Canalis's 
house  to  let  La  Briere  know  by  a  wink 
that  the  whip  had  gone  to  its  destination,  i 

•'•'I?"    answered   Ernest;    "no,   I  am  { 
g-oing'  to  bed."  | 

'•'  Bah  !  "  exclaimed  Canalis,  looking-  at 
him.  "I  don't  know  what  to  make  of 
you  any  more." 

Breakfast  was  then  served,  and  the  poet 
naturally  invited  their  visitor  to  stay  and 
take  it.  Butscha  complied,  having-  seen 
in  the  expression  of  tlie  valet's  face  the 
success  of  a  trick  in  which  we  shall  see 
the  first  fruits  of  his  promise  to  Modesto. 

'•'Monsieur  is  very  right  to  detain  Mon- 
sieur Latournelle's  clerk,"  whispered  Ger- 
main in  his  master's  ear. 

Canalis   and   Germain   went    into    the 


salon  at  a  sign  that  passed  between 
them. 

"I  went  out  this  morning  to  see  the 
men  fish,  monsieur,"  said  the  valet — "  an 
excursion  proposed  to  me  by  the  captain 
of  a  smack,  whose  acquaintance  I  have 
made." 

Germain  did  not  acknowledge  that  he 
had  the  bad  taste  to  play  billiards  in  a 
cafe — a  fact  of  which  Butscha  had  taken 
advantage  lo  surround  him  with  friends 
of  his  own  and  manage  him  as  he  pleased. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  Canalis,  "  to  the  point- 
quick  ! " 

''Monsieur  le  Baron.  I  heard  n  con^■er- 
sation  about  Monsieur  Mignon,  which  I 
encourag-cd  as  far  as  I  could  ;  for  no  one, 
of  course,  knew  that  I  belong-  to  you. 
Ah  !  monsieur,  judging  b^^  the  talk  of 
the  quays,  you  are  running-  your  head 
into  a  noose.  The  fortune  of  Mademoi- 
selle de  la  Bastie  is,  like  her  name,  mod- 
est. The  vessel  on  which  the  father  re- 
turned does  not  belong  to  him,  but  to 
rich  China  merchants  lo  whom  ho  renders 
an  account.  They  even  say  things  that 
arc  not  at  all  flattering-  to  Monsieur  Mi- 
gnon's  honor.  Havmg  heard  that  joxx 
and  Monsieur  le  Due  were  rivals  for 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie's  hand,  I  have 
taken  the  liberty  to  warn  you  ;  for  of 
the  two,  it  would  be  better  that  his  lord- 
ship should  gobble  her.  As  I  came  home 
I  walked  round  the  quays,  and  into  that 
theater-hall  where  the  merchants  meet ; 
I  slipped  boldly  in  and  out  among  them. 
Seeing-  a  well-dressed  stranger,  those 
woi'thy  fellows  beg-an  to  talk  to  me  of 
Havre,  and  I  got  them,  little  by  little, 
to  speak  of  Colonel  Mig-non.  What  they 
said  only  confirms  the  stories  the  fisher- 
men told  me ;  and  I  feel  that  I  should 
fail  in  my  duty  if  I  keep  silence.  That 
is  why  I  did  not  get  homo  in  time  to 
dress  monsieur  this  morning." 

"  What  am  I  to  do  ?  '"  cried  Canalis, 
who  remembered  his  proposals  to  Mo- 
desto the  night  before,  and  did  not  see 
ho\v  he  could  g-et  out  of  them. 

"Monsieur  knows  my  attachment  to 
him,"  said  Germain,  perceiving  that  the 
po't  was  thrown  quite  ofi'  his  balance; 
'•  he  will  not  be  surprised  if  I  give  him 


443 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


a  word  of  advice.  There  is  that  clerk  ; 
try  to  g-et  the  truth  out  of  him.  Per- 
haps he'll  unbutton  after  a  bottle  or  two 
of  chanipag-ne,  or  at  any  rate  a  third. 
It  would  be  strang-e  indeed  if  monsieur, 
who  will  one  day  be  an  embassador,  as 
Philoxeno  has  heard  Madame  la  Duchesse 
say  time  and  time  again,  could  not  get  to 
the  bottom  of  a  provincial  clerk's  knowl- 
edge." 


XXIII. 


At  this  instunt  Butscha,  the  unknown 
author  of  the  fishing  party,  was  request- 
ing the  secretary  to  say  nothing  about 
his  trip  to  Paris,  and  not  to  interfere  in 
any  way  with  what  he,  Butscha,  might 
do.  The  dwarf  had  already  made  use  of 
an  unfavorable  feeling  lately  roused  in 
Havre  ag-ainst  Monsieur  Mignon.  The 
latter  had  completely  ignored  those  of 
liis  former  friends  who  during  his  ab- 
sence had  neglected  his  wife  and  children. 
When  they  hnd  learned  that  he  was  about 
to  give  a  great  dinner,  they  had  expected 
invitations,  but  when  they  found  that 
Gobenheira,  the  Latournelles,  the  duke 
and  the  two  Parisians  were  the  only 
guests,  a  great  clamor  arose  concerning 
the  merchant's  pride  and  affectation, 
which  were  attributed  to  scorn,  and 
Havre  took  its  revenge  by  questioning 
the  amount  of  the  fortvme  which  had 
suddenh'  come  to  the  Mignons.  The 
persons  who  were  most  bitter  against 
liim  even  declared  calumniously  that  he 
had  made  over  a  large  amount  of  prop- 
erty to  Dumay  to  save  it  from  the  just 
demands  of  his  associates  in  China.  But- 
scha took  advantage  of  this  state  of  feel- 
ing. He  asked  the  fishermen,  who  owed 
hitn  man^'  a  good  turn,  to  keep  the  secret 
and  lend  him  their  tongues.  They  served 
him  well.  The  captain  of  the  fishing- 
smack  told  Germain  that  one  of  his  cous- 
ins, a  sailor,  had  just  returned  from  Mar- 
seilles, where  he  had  been  paid  off  from 
the  brig  in  which  Monsieur  Mignon  re- 
turned to  France.  The  brig  had  been 
sold  to  the  account  of  some  other  person 
than  Monsieur  Mignon,  and  the  cargo  was 


only  worth  three  or  four  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  at  the  utmost. 

"Germain,"  said  Canalis,  as  the  valet 
was  leaving  the  room,  "  serve  champagne 
and  claret.  A  member  of  the  legal  fra- 
ternity of  Havre  must  carry  away  with 
him  proper  ideas  of  a  poet's  hosiiitality. 
Besides,  he  has  got  a  wit  that  is  equal  to 
Figaro's, "added  Canalis,  laying  his  hand 
on  the  dwai'f's  shoulder,  "and  we  must 
make  it  foam  and  sparkle  with  cham- 
pagne ;  you  and  I,  Ernest,  will  not  spare 
the  bottle  either.  Faith,  it  is  over  two 
years  since  I've  been  drunk,"  he  added, 
looking  at  La  Briere. 

"Not  drunk  with  wine,  you  mean," 
said  Butscha,  looking  keenly  at  him, 
"  yes,  I  can  believe  that.  You  get  drunk 
every  day  on  yourself,  3'ou  di'ink  scJ  many 
praises.  Ha  !  you  are  handsome,  you  are 
a  poet,  3'ou  ai'e  famous  in  your  lifetime, 
you  have  the  gift  of  an  eloquence  that  is 
equal  to  your  genius,  and  you  please  all 
women  —  even  my  master's  wife.  Ad- 
mired by  the  finest  woman  that  I  ever 
saw  in  m^'^  life,  you  can,  if  you  choose, 
marry  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie.  Good- 
ness !  the  mere  inventoiy  of  your  pres- 
ent advantages,  not  to  speak  of  the  fut- 
ure (a  noble  title,  peerage,  embassy!),  is 
enough  to  make  me  drunk  already' — like 
the  men  who  bottle  other  men's  wine." 

"All  such  social  distinctions,"  said  Ca- 
nalis, "are  of  little  use  without  the  one 
thing  that  gives  them  value — Avealth. 
Here  we  can  talk  as  men  with  men  ;  fine 
sentiments  only  do  in  verse." 

"  That  depends  on  circumstances,"  said 
the  dwarf,  with  a  knowing  gesture. 

"Ah  !  you  writer  of  conveyances,"  said 
the  poet,  smiling  at  the  interruption, 
"you  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  cottage 
i-hymes  with  pottage  —  and  who  would 
like  to  live  on  that  for  the  rest  of  his 
days?" 

At  table  Butscha  played  the  part  of 
Trigaudin,  in  the  Maison  en  loterie,  in  a 
way  that  alarmed  Ernest,  wlio  did  not 
know  the  waggery  of  a  law\-er's  office, 
which  is  quite  equal  to  that  of  an  atelier. 
Butscha  poured  forth  the  scandalous  gos- 
sip of  Havre,  the  private  history  of  fort- 
unes and  boudoirs,  and  the  crimes  com- 


MODEST E    MWyON. 


443 


mitted  code  in  hand,  which  are  called  in 
Kormaudy,  '"getting-  out  of  a  thing  as 
best  j-ou  can."  He  spared  no  one  ;  and 
his  liveliness  increased  with  the  torrents 
of  wine  which  poured  down  his  throat  like 
rain  througli  a  gutter. 

"Do  you  know,  La  Briere,"  said  Ca- 
nalis,  fdling  Butscha's  glass,  "that  this 
fellow  would  make  a  capital  secretary  to 
the  embassy  ?  " 

"  And  oust  his  chief  !  "  cried  the  dwarf, 
flinging  a  look  at  Canalis  whose  insolence 
was  lost  in  the  gurgling  of  carbonic  acid 
gas.  '"I've  little  enough  gratitude  and 
quite  enough  scheming  to  get  astride  of 
your  shoulders.  Ha,  ha,  a  poet  carrying 
a  hunchback  !  that's  been  seen,  often  seen 
— on  book-shelves.  Come,  j'ou  look  at 
me  as  if  I  were  swallowing  swords.  M3' 
dear  great  genius,  j-ou're  a  superior  man; 
you  know  that  gratitude  is  the  word  of 
fools  ;  it  is  in  the  dictionary,  but  it  isn't 
In  the  human  heart ;  pledges  are  worth 
nothing,  except  on  a  certain  mount  that 
is  neither  Piudus  nor  Parnassus.  You 
think  I  owe  a  great  deal  to  my  master's 
wife,  who  brought  me  up.  Bless  you, 
the  whole  town  has  paid  her  for  that 
in  i^raises,  respect,  and  admiration — the 
very  best  of  coin.  I  don't  recogijize  any 
service  that  has  an  income  of  self-love. 
Men  make  a  commerce  of  their  services, 
and  gratitude  goes  down  on  the  debit 
side — that's  all.  As  to  schemes,  they  are 
my  divinity.  What?"  he  exclaimed,  at 
a  gesture  of  Canalis,  "  don't  you  admire 
the  faculty  wdiich  enables  a  wily  man  to 
get  the  better  of  a  man  of  genius  ?  It 
takes  the  closest  observation  of  his  vices 
and  his  weaknesses,  and  the  wit  to  seize 
the  happj'  moment.  Ask  diplomacy  if  its 
greatest  triumphs  are  not  those  of  craft 
over  force  ?  If  I  w^ere  your  secretary. 
Monsieur  le  Bai'on,  you'd  soon  be  prime 
minister,  because  it  would  be  my  interest 
to  have  you  so.  Do  you  want  a  specimen 
of  my  talents  in  that  line  ?  Well  then, 
listen  ;  you  love  Mademoiselle  Modeste 
distractedly,  and  you've  good  reason  to 
do  so.  The  girl  has  my  fullest  esteem  ; 
she  is  a  true  Parisian.  Sometimes  we  get 
a  few  real  Parisians  born  down  here  in 
the  provinces.     Well,  Modeste  is  just  the 


woman  to  help  a  man's  career.  She's 
got  that  in  her,"  he  cried,  with  a  turn  of 
his  wrist  in  the  air.  "  But  j'ou've  a  dan- 
gerous competitor  in  the  duke  ;  what  will 
you  give  me  to  get  him  out  of  Havre 
within  three  daj-s?" 

"  Finish  this  bottle,"  said  the  poet,  re- 
filling Butscha's  glass. 

"You'll  make  me  drunk,"  said  the 
dwarf,  tossing  off  his  ninth  glass  of  cham- 
pagne. "Have  3'ou  a  bed  where  I  could 
sleep  it  off  ?  My  master  is  as  sober  as  the 
camel  that  he  is,  and  Madame  Latour- 
nelle  too.  They  would  be  unkind  enough, 
both  of  them,  to  scold  me  ;  and  they'd 
have  the  rights  of  it  too — there  are  those 
deeds  I  ought  to  be  drawing  ! — "  Then, 
suddenly  returning  to  his  previous  ideas, 
after  the  fashion  of  a  drunken  man,  he 
exclaimed,  "  and  I've  such  a  memory ;  it 
is  equal  to  my  gratitude." 

"Butscha  I  "  cried  the  poet,  "you  said 
just  now  you  had  no  gratitude ;  you  con- 
tradict 3'ourself." 

"Not  at  all,"  he  replied.  "To  forget 
a  thing  means  almost  always  recollecting 
it.  Come,  come,  do  you  want  me  to  get 
rid  of  the  duke?  I'm  cut  out  for  a  secre- 
tary." 

"How  could  you  manage  it?"  said 
Canalis,  delighted  to  find  the  conversa- 
tion taking  this  turn  of  its  own  accord. 

"That's  none  of  your  business,"  said 
the  dwarf,  with   a  portentous  hiccough. 

Butscha 's  head  I'oUed  between  his  shoul-  ■ 
ders,  and  his  eyes  turned  from  Germain 
to  La  Briere,  and  from  La  Briere  to  Ca- 
nalis, after  the  manner  of  men  who,  know- 
ing they  are  tipsy,  wish  to  see  what  other 
men  are  thinking  of  them  ;  for  in  the 
sliipwreck  of  drunkenness  it  is  noticeable 
that  self-love  is  the  last  thing  that  goes 
to  the  bottom. 

"  Ha  !  my  great  poet,  A'ou'i-e  a  pretty 
good  trickster  yourself ;  but  \o\i  are  not 
deep  enough.  What  do  you  mean  b^-  tak- 
ing me  for  one  of  your  own  readers — you, 
who  sent  your  friend  to  Paris,  full  gallop, 
to  inquire  into  the  property  of  the  Mignon 
family  ?  Ha,  ha  !  I  hoa.x,  thou  hoaxest, 
we  hoax — Good  !  But  do  me  the  honor  to 
believe  that  I"m  deep  enough  to  keep  the 
secrets  of  mv  own  business.     As  the  liead- 


444 


THE    HUM  Ay     COMEDY 


clerk  of  a  notary,  my  heart  is  a  locked 
box,  padlocked  1  My  mouth  never  opens 
to  let  out  anything  about  achcnt.  I  know 
all,  and  I  know  nothing.  Besides,  my 
passion  is  well  known.  I  love  Modesto  ; 
she  is  my  pupil,  and  she  must  make  a 
good  marriage.  I'll  fool  the  duke,  if  need 
be  ;  and  you  shall  marry — " 

"  Germain,  coffee  and  liqueurs,"  said 
Canalis. 

"  Liqueurs  !  "  repeated  Butscha  Avith  a 
wave  of  liis  hand,  as  if  to  repel  seduction. 
"Ah,  those  poor  deeds  !  one  of  'em  was  a 
marriage  contract ;  and  that  second  clerk 
of  mi!ie  is  as  stupid  as — as — an  epithala- 
mium,  and  he's  capable  of  digging  his 
penknife  right  through  the  bride's  para- 
phernalia ;  he  thinks  he's  a  handsome 
man  because  he's  five  feet  six — idiot !  " 

"  Here  is  some  creme  de  the,  a  liqueur 
of  the  West  Indies,"  said  Canalis.  "  You, 
whom  Mademoiselle  Modesto  consults — " 

"  Yes,  she  consults  me." 

"  Well,  do  3'ou  think  she  loves  me  ?  " 
asked  the  poet. 

•'  Loves  you  ?  yes,  more  than  she  loves 
the  duke,"  answered  the  dwarf,  rousing 
himself  from  a  stupor  which  was  admir- 
al)l3'  played.  "She  loves  j'ou  for  your 
disinterestedness.  She  told  me  thnt  for 
3'ou  she  was  capable  of  any  sacrifice ;  to 
give  up  dress  and  spend  as  little  as  pos- 
sible on  herself,  and  devote  her  life  to 
showing  you  that  in  marrying  hor  you 
hadn't  done  so  [hiccough]  bad  a  thing  for 
yourself.  She's  as  right  as  a  trivet — yes, 
and  well  informed.  She  l<nows  every- 
thing, that  girl." 

'•■  And  she  has  three  hundred  thousand 
francs  ?" 

"  There  may  be  quite  as  much  as  that," 
cried  the  dwarf,  enthusiasticalh".  "  Papa 
Mignon  —  mignon  by  name,  mignon  by 
nature,  and  that's  why  I  respect  him — 
well,  he  would  rob  himself  of  everything 
to  marry  his  daugliter.  Your  Restora- 
tion [hiccough]  has  taught  him  how  to  live 
on  half-pay ;  he'il  be  quite  content  to  live 
with  Dumaj'  on  next  to  nothing,  in  Havre, 
if  he  could  rake  and  scrape  enough  to- 
gether to  give  the  little  one  three  hundred 
thousand  francs.  But  don't  let's  forget 
that  Dumay  is  going  to  leave  all  his  money 


to  Modeste.  Dumay,  you  know,  is  a  Bre- 
ton, and  a  Breton  always  keeps  his  word; 
and  his  fortune  is  equal  to  the  colonel's. 
But  I  don't  approve  of  Monsieur  Mignon's 
taking  back  that  villa,  and,  as  they  often 
ask  my  adAice,  I  told  them  so.  '  You 
sink  too  much  in  it,'  I  said  ;  'if  Vilquin 
does  not  buy  it  back  there's  two  hundred 
thousand  francs  which  won't  bring  you 
in  a  penny  ;  it  only  leaves  you  a  hundred 
thousand  to  get  along  with,  and  it  isn't 
enough.'  The  colonel  and  Dumay  are 
consulting  about  it  now.  But  neverthe- 
less, between  you  and  me,  Modeste  is  sure 
to  be  rich.  I  hear  talk  on  the  quays 
against  it;  but  that's  all  nonsense;  people 
are  jealous.  Why,  there's  no  such  dot  in 
Havre,"  cried  Butscha,  beginning  to  count 
On  his  fingers.  "  Two  to  three  hundred 
thousand  in  ready  money,"  bending  back 
the  thumb  of  his  left  hand  with  the  fore- 
finger of  his  right,  "  that's  one  item  ;  the 
reversion  of  the  villa  Mig-non,  that's  an- 
other; fer^fo,  Dumay 's  property!"  dou- 
bling dovi/n  his  middle  finger.  "  Ha  !  little 
Modeste  may  count  up  her  six  hundred 
thousand  francs  as  soon  as  the  two  old 
soldiers  have  got  their  marching  orders 
for  eternity." 

This  coarse  and  candid  statement,  in- 
termingled with  a  variety  of  liquors,  so- 
bered Canalis  as  much  as  it  appeared  to 
befuddle  Butscha.  To  the  latter,  a  young 
provincial,  such  a  fortune  must  of  course 
seem  colossal.  He  let  his  head  fall  into 
the  palm  of  his  right  hand,  and,  putting 
his  hand  majestically  on  the  table,  blinked 
his  eyes  and  continued  talking  to  himself — 

"  In  twenty  years,  thanks  to  that  Code, 
which  pillag'es  fortunes  under  what  they 
call  'Successions,'  an  heiress  worth  a 
million  will  be  as  rare  as  generosity  in 
a  money-lender.  Suppose  Modeste  does 
want  to  spend  all  the  interest  of  her 
own  money  —  well,  she  is  so  pretty,  so 
sweet  and  pretty;  why  she's — you  poets 
are  always  after  metaphors  —  she's  a 
weasel  as  tricky  as  a  monkey." 

"  How  came  you  to  tell  me  she  had  six 
millions?"  said  Canalis  to  La  Briere,  in 
a  low  voice. 

"My  friend,"  said  Ernest,  "I  do  as- 
sure you  that  I  was  bound  to  silence  by 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


445 


an  oath  ;  perhaps,  even  now  I  ought  not 
to  say  as  much  as  that." 

"Bound  !  to  whom?" 

"To  Monsieur  Mignon." 

"  Ernest !  you  who  know  how  essential 
fortune  is  to  me — " 

Butscha  snored. 

'• — who  know  my  situation,  and  all  that 
I  shall  lose  in  the  Ducb^sse  de  Chaulieu, 
by  marrying,  you  coldly  let  m'e  plunge 
into  such  a  thing  as  this  I  "  exclaimed 
Canalis,  turing  pale.  "  It  was  a  ques- 
tion of  friendship ;  and  ours  was  a  com- 
pact entered  into  long  before  j'ou  ever 
saw  that  crafty  Mignon." 
'  "My  dear  fellow,"  said  Ernest,  "I 
love  Modeste  too  well  to — " 

"Fool  !  then  take  her,"  cried  the  jioet, 
"and  break  your  oath." 

"  Will  you  promise  me  on  your  word 
of  honor  to  forget  what.  I  now  tell  you, 
and  to  l)ehave  to  me  as  though  this  con- 
fidence had  never  been  made,  whatever 
happens  ?  " 

"I'll  swear  that,  by  my  mother's  mem- 
ory." 

"Well  then,"  said  La  Briere,  "Mon- 
sieur Mignon  told  me  in  Paris  that  he 
was  very  far  from  having  the  colossal 
fortune  which  the  Mongenods  told  me 
about  and  which  I  mentioned  to  you. 
The  colonel  intends  to  give  two  hundred 
thousand  francs  to  his  daughter.  And 
now%  Melchior,  I  ask  j'ou,  was  the  fatlier 
really  distrustful  of  us,  as  you  thought ; 
or  was  he  sincere  ?  It  is  not  for  me  to 
answer  those  questions.  If  Modeste,  with- 
out a  fortune,  deigns  to  choose  me,  she 
will  still  be  my  wife." 

"  A  blue-stocking  !  educated  till  she  is 
a  terror  !  a  girl  who  has  read  everything, 
who  knows  everything — in  theory,"  cried 
Canalis,  hastily,  noticing  La  Briere's  gest- 
ure, "a  spoiled  child,  brought  up  in  lux- 
ury in  her  childhood,  and  who  has  been 
without  it  for  five  years.  Ah  !  my  poor 
friend,  take  care  what  you  are  about." 

"  Ode  and  Code,"  said  Butscha,  waking 
up,  "you  do  the  ode  and  I  the  code; 
there's  only  a  C's  difference  between  us. 
Well,  now,  code  comes  from  coda,  a  tail 
— mark  that  word  !  See  here  !  a  bit  of 
good  advice  is  worth  your  wine  and  your 


cream  of  tea.  Father  Mignon — he's  cream, 
too  ;  the  cream  of  honest  men — he  is  going 
with  his  daughter  on  this  riding  party;  do 
you  go  up  frankly  and  talk  dot  to  hira. 
He'll  answer  plainl3%  and  j-ou"ll  get  at 
the  truth  just  as  surely  as  I'm  drunk, 
and  j'ou're  a  great  poet — but  no  matter 
for  that ;  we  are  to  leave  Havre  together, 
that's  settled,  isn't  it  ?  I'm  to  be  your 
secretary  in  place  of  that  little  fellow  who 
sits  there  grinning  at  me  and  thinking 
I'm  drunk.  Come,  let's  go,  and  leave 
him  to  marry  the  girl." 

Canalis  rose  to  leave  the  room  to  dress 
for  the  excursion. 

"'  Hush,  not  a  word — he  is  going  to 
commit  suicide,"  whispered  Butscha, 
sober  as  a  judge,  to  La  Briere,  as  he 
made  at  Canalis's  back  a  gesture  fa- 
miliar to  the  gamins  of  Paris.  "Adieu, 
m.y  chief !  "  he  shouted,  in  stentorian 
tones,  "  will  you  allow  me  to  take  a 
.snooze  in  that  kiosk  down  in  the  gar- 
den ?  " 

"Make  yourself  at  home,"  answered 
the  poet. 

Butscha,  pursued  by  the  laughtep  of 
the  three  servants  of  the  establishment, 
gained  the  kiosk  by  walking  over  the 
flower-beds  and  round  the  vases  with 
the  perverse  grace  of  an  insect  describ- 
ing its  interminable  zig-zags  as  it  tries 
to  get  out  of  a  closed  window.  When 
he  had  clambered  into  the  kiosk,  and 
the  servants  had  retired,  he  sat  down 
on  a  wooden  bench  and  wallowed  in  the 
delights  of  his  triumph.  He  had  com- 
pletely fooled  a  great  man  ;  he  had  not 
onl3'  torn  off  his  mask,  but  he  had  made 
him  untie  the  strings  himself ;  and  he 
laughed  like  an  author  over  his  own 
play — with  a  true  sense  of  the  immense 
value  of  this  vis  comica. 

"Men  are  tops!"  he  cried,  "j'ou've 
only  to  find  the  tw-ine  to  wind  'em  with. 
But  I'm  like  my  fellows,"  he  added, 
presently.  "I  should  faint  away  if  any 
one  came  and  said  tome,  'Mademoiselle 
Modeste  has  been  thrown  from  her  horse, 
and  has  broken  her  leg.'  " 


446 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY, 


XXIV. 

A  FEW  moments  later,  Modesto,  charm- 
ing'ly  equipped  in  a  bottle-gieen  cassiniere 
habit,  a  small  hat  with  a  green  veil,  buck- 
skin g-loves,  and  velvet  boots,  and  mounted 
on  an  elegantly  caparisoned  little  horse, 
was  exhibiting  to  her  father  and  the  Due 
d'Herouville  the  beautiful  present  she  had 
just  received  ;  she  was  evidently  delighted 
with  one  of  those  attentions  that  particu- 
larly flatter  women. 

•'  Did  it  come  from  you.  Monsieur  le 
Due  ?  "  she  said,  holding  the  sparkling 
handle  toward  him.  "  There  was  a  card 
with  it,  saying,  '  Guess,  if  you  can,'  and 
some  asterisks.  Francoise  and  Dumaj' 
credit  Butscha  with  this  charming  sur- 
prise ;  but  my  dear  Butscha  is  not  rich 
enough  to  \>\\x  such  rubies.  And  as  for 
papa  (to  whom  I  said,  as  I  remember,  on 
Sunday  evening,  that  I  had  no  whip),  he 
sent  to  Rouen  for  this  one" — pointing  to 
a  whip  in  her  father's  hand,  with  a  top 
sown  with  turquoises,  a  fashion  then  in 
vogue  which  has  since  become  common. 

'«I  would  give  ten  j^ears  of  my  old  age, 
mademoiselle,  to  have  the  right  to  offer 
you  that  beautiful  jewel,"  said  the  duke, 
courteously. 

"  Ah,  here  comes  the  audacious  giver  !" 
cried  Modeste,  as  Canalis  rode  up.  "  It 
is  only  a  poet  who  knows  where  to  find 
such  choice  things.  Monsieur,"  she  said 
to  Melchior,  "  my  father  will  scold  you, 
and  say  that  you  justify  those  who  accuse 
you  of  extravagance." 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Canalis,  with  appar- 
ent simplicit}',  ' '  .so  that  is  whj'  La  Briere 
rode  at  full  gallop  from  Havre  to  Paris  ?" 

"  Does  your  secretary  take  such  liber- 
ties ? "  said  Modeste,  turning  pale,  and 
throwing  the  whip  to  Francoise  with  an 
impetuosity  that  expressed  scorn.  "  Give 
me  your  whip,  papa." 

"Poor  Ernest,  who  lies  there  on  his 
bed  half-dead  with  fatigue !  "  said  Cana- 
lis, overtaking  the  girl,  who  had  already 
started  at  a  gallop.  "  You  are  pitiless, 
mademoiselle.  '  I  have  '  (the  poor  fellow 
said  to  me)  '  only  this  one  chance  to  j-e- 
main  in  her  memorj\'  " 

"And  should  vou  think  well  of  a  wo- 


man who  could  take  presents  from  half 
the  parish  ?  "  said  Modeste. 

She  was  surprised  to  receive  no  answer 
to  this  inquiry,  and  attributed  the  poet's 
inattention  to  the  noise  of  the  horse's 
feet. 

"How  you  delight  in  tormenting  those 
who  love  you,"  said  the  duke.  "Your 
nobility  of  soul  and  your  pride  are  so  in- 
consistent with  your  faults  that  I  begin 
to  suspect  you  calumniate  yourself,  and 
do  those  naughty  things  on  purpose." 

"  Ah  !  have  you  onl^'  just  found  that 
out.  Monsieur  le  Due  ?"  she  exclaimed, 
laughing.  "  You  have  the  sagacity  of 
a  husband." 

They  rode  half  a  mile  in  silence.  Mo- 
deste was  a  good  deal  astonished  not  to 
receive  the  fire  of  the  poet's  eyes.  The 
evening  before,  as  she  was  pointing  out 
to  him  an  admirable  effect  of  setting  sun- 
light across  the  water,  she  had  said,  re- 
marking his  inattention,  ""Well,  don't 
you  see  it?" — to  which  he  replied,  "I 
can  see  only  your  hand;"  but  now  his 
admiration  for  the  beauties  of  nature 
seemed  a  little  too  intense  to  be  natural. 

"  Does  Monsieur  de  la  Briere  know  how 
to  ride?  "she  asked,  for  the  purpose  of 
teasing  him. 

"Not  very  well,  but  he  gets  along," 
answered  the  poet,  cold  as  Gobenheim 
before  the  colonel's  return. 

At  a  cross-road,  which  Monsieur  Mi- 
gnon  made  them  take,  to  go  through  a 
lovely  valley  to  reach  a  hill  overlooking 
the  Seine,  Canalis  allowed  Modeste  and 
the  duke  to  pass  him,  and  then  reined  up 
to  join  the  colonel. 

"Monsieur  le  Comte,"  he  said,  "you 
are  an  open-hearted  soldier,  and  I  know 
3'ou  will  regard  my  frankness  as  a  title 
to  your  esteem.  When  pmi^osals  of  mar- 
riage, with  all  their  brutal — or,  if  you 
please,  too  civilized — discussions,  are  car- 
ried on  by  third  parties,  it  is  an  injurj'  to 
all.  We  are  both  gentlemen,  and  both 
discreet;  and  you,  like  myself,  have 
passed  beyond  the  age  of  surprises.  Let 
us  therefore  speak  as  intimates.  I  will 
set  you  the  example.  I  am  twenty -nine 
years  old,  without  landed  estates,  and 
full  of  ambition.     Mademoiselle  Modeste, 


MODESTE    MIGNON. 


447 


as  j'ou  must  have  perceived,  pleases  me 
extremely.  Kow,  in  spite  of  the  little 
defects  which  your  dear  girl  assumes 
occasionallj' — " 

" — not  counting  those  she  really  pos- 
sesses," said  the  colonel,  smiling-— 

" — I  should  gladly  make  her  my  wife, 
and  I  believe  I  could  render  her  happy. 
The  question  of  money  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  m3'  future,  which  hangs 
to-day  in  the  balance.  All  young  girls 
expect  to  be  loved  luhether  or  no — foi't- 
une  or  no  fortune.  But  you  are  not  the 
man  to  marry  your  dear  Modeste  without 
a  dot,  and  my  situation  does  not  allow 
me  to  make  a  marriage  of  what  is  called 
love  unless  with  a  woman  who  has  a  fort- 
une at  least  equal  to  mine.  I  have,  from 
my  emoluments  and  sinecures,  from  the 
Academj'  and  from  my  .works,  about 
thirty  thousand  francs  a  year,  a  large 
income  for  a  bachelor.  If  my  wife 
brought  me  as  much  more,  I  should 
still  be  in  about  the  same  condition  that 
I  am  now.  Sliall  you  give  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  a  million  ?  " 

"Ah,  monsieur,  we  have  not  reached 
the  point  of  figures  yet,"  said  the  colonel, 
jesuiticalh'. 

"  Then  suppose,"  said  Canalis,  quickly, 
"that  we  go  no  farther.  You  shall  have 
no  cause  to  complain  of  me,  Monsieur 
le  Comte ;  the  world  shall  consider  me 
among  the  unfortunate  suitors  of  j^our 
charming  daughter.  Give  me  your  word 
of  honor  to  saj'  nothing  on  the  subject  to 
any  one,  not  even  to  Mademoiselle  Mo- 
deste, because,"  he  added,  as  if  in  search 
of  consolation,  "  my  circumstances  raaj' 
so  change  that  I  can  ask  you  for  her 
without  dot." 

"1  promise  you  that,"  said  the  colonel. 
"You  know,  monsieur,  with  what  assur- 
ance the  public,  both  in  Paris  and  the 
provinces,  talk  of  fortunes  that  are  made 
and  unmade.  People  exaggerate  both 
happiness  and  unhappiness ;  we  are  never 
so  fortunate  nor  so  unfortunate  as  people 
say  we  are.  There  is  nothing  sure  and 
certain  in  business  except  investments  in 
land.  I  am  awaiting  the  accounts  of  my 
agents  with  very  great  impatience.  The 
sale  of  mj'  merchandise  and  of  mj^  ship, 


and  the  settlement  of  my  affairs  in  China, 
are  not  j'et  concluded ;  and  I  cannot  know 
the  full  amount  of  my  fortune  for  at  least 
six  months.  I  did,  however,  say  to  Mon- 
sieur de  la  Briere  in  Paris  that  I  would 
guarantee  a  dot  of  two  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  ready  money.  I  wish  to  entail 
my  estates,  and  enable  my  grandchildren 
to  inherit  my  arms  and  title." 

Canalis  did  not  listen  to  this  state- 
ment after  the  opening  sentence.  The 
four  riders,  having  now  reached  a  wider 
road,  went  abreast  and  soon  reached  a 
stretch  of  table-land,  from  which  the  eye 
took  in  on  one  side  the  rich  valley  of  the 
Seine  toward  Rouen,  while  on  the  other 
horizon  the  e\-e  could  distinguish  the  sea. 

"Butscha  was  right,  God  is  the  great- 
est of  all  landscape  painters,"  said  Ca- 
nalis, contemplating  the  view,  which  is 
unique  among  the  manj-  fine  scenes  that 
have  made  the  shores  of  the  Seine  so 
justly  celebrated. 

"  Especially  do  we  feel  that,  my  dear 
baron,"  said  the  duke,  "  on  hunting- 
days,  when  nature  has  a  voice,  and  a 
livel^y  tumult  breaks  the  silence  ;  at  such 
times  the  landscape,  changing  rapidly 
as  we  ride  through  it,  seems  really 
sublime." 

"  The  sun  is  the  inexhaustible  palette," 
said  Modeste,  looking  at  the  poet  in  a 
species  of  bewilderment. 

A  remark  that  she  presently  made  on 
his  absence  of  mind  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  saying  that  he  was  just  then 
absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts — an  excuse 
that  authors  have  more  reason  for  giving 
than  other  men. 

"  Are  we  really  made  happy  by  carry- 
ing our  lives  into  the  midst  of  tlie  world, 
and  swelling  them  with  all  sorts  of 
fictitious  wants  and  overexcited  vani- 
ties ?  "  said  Modeste,  moved  by  the  as- 
pect of  the  fertile  and  billowy  country 
to  long  for  a  philosophicallj-  tranquil 
life. 

"  That  bucolic,  mademoiselle,  is  always 
written  on  tablets  of  gold,"  said  the 
poet. 

"And  sometimes  under  garret-roofs," 
remarked  the  colonel. 

Modeste  threw  a    piercing   glance  at 


448 


THE    HUMAM     UUMEDl'. 


Canalis,  which  lie  was  unable  to  sustain  ; 
she  was  conscious  of  a  ringing  in  hereais, 
darkness  seemed  to  spread  before  her, 
and  then  she  suddenly  exclaimed  in  icy 
tones — 

"Ah  !  it  is  Wednesday  !  " 

"  I  do  not  saj'  this  to  flatter  your  pass- 
ing- caprice,  mademoiselle,"' said  the  duUe, 
to  whom  the  little  scene,  so  tragical  for 
Modeste,  had  left  time  for  thought ;  "hut 
I  declare  I  am  so  profoundly  disgusted 
Willi  the  world  and  the  court  and  Paris, 
that  had  I  a  Duchesse  d'Herouville, 
gifted  with  the  wit  and  graces  of  made- 
moiselle, I  would  gladly  bind  myself  to 
live  like  a  philosopher  at  my  chateau, 
doing  good  around  me,  draining  my 
marshes,  educating  my  children — "' 

"  That,  Monsieur  le  Due,  will  be  set  to 
the  account  of  your  great  goodness, "said 
Modeste,  h'tting  her  e^'es  rest  steadily  on 
the  noble  gentleman.  '•'  You  flatter  me 
in  not  thinking  me  frivolous,  and  in  be- 
lieving that  I  have  enough  resources  with- 
in mj'self  to  be  able  to  live  in  solitude.  It 
is  perhaps  my  lot,"  she  added,  glancing 
at  Canalis  with  an  expression  of  pity. 

'•'  It  is  the  lot  of  all  insignificant  fort- 
unes," said  the  poet.  "Paris  demands 
Babylonian  splendor.  Sometimes  I  ask 
myself  how  I  have  ever  managed  to  keep 
it  up." 

"  The  king  does  that  for  both  of  us," 
said  the  duke,  candidly-;  "we  live  on  his 
majesty's  bounty.  If  my  family  had  not 
been  allowed,  after  the  death  of  Monsieur 
le  Grand,  as  they  called  Cinq-Mars,  to 
keej)  his  office  among  us,  we  should  have 
been  obliged  to  sell  Herouville  to  the 
Black  Brethren.  Ah,  believe  me,  made- 
moiselle, it  is  a  bitter  humiliation  to  me 
to  have  to  think  of  money  in  marry- 
ing." 

The  simple  honesty  of  this  confession 
came  from  his  heart,  and  the  regret  was 
so  sincere  that  it  touched  Modeste. 

"In  these  days,"  said  the  poet,  "no 
man  in  France,  Monsieur  le  Due,  is  rich 
enough  to  marry  a  woman  for  herself, 
her  personal  worth,  her  grace,  or  her 
beauty—" 

Tiie  colonel  looked  at  Canalis  \\ith  a 
curious  eye,  after  first  watching  Modeste, 


whose  face  no  longer  expressed  the  slight- 
est astonishment. 

"  For  persons  of  high  honor,"  he  said 
slowly,  "  it  is  a  noble  employment  of 
wealth  to  destine  it  to  the  reparation 
of  the  ravages  of  time  and  destiny,  and 
to  restore  the  old  historic  families." 

"Yes,  papa,"  said  Modeste,  gravely. 

The  colonel  invited  the  duke  and  Cana- 
lis to  dine  with  him  sociably  in  their  rid- 
ing-dress, promising  them  to  make  no 
change  himself.  When  Modeste  went  to 
her  room  to  make  her  toilet,  she  looked 
at  the  jeweled  whip  she  had  disdained  in 
the  morning. 

"What  workmanship  they  put  into 
such  things  nowadays  I "  she  said  to 
Fi-an^oise  Cochet,  who  had  become  her 
waiting-maid. 

"That  poor  young  man,  mademoiselle, 
who  has  got  a  fever — " 

"Who  told  you  that?" 

"Monsieur  Butscha.  He  came  here 
this  afternoon  and  asked  me  to  say  to 
3'ou  that  he  hoped  \-ou  would  notice  he 
had  kept  his  word  on  the  aijpointed  day." 

Modeste  came  down  into  the  salon 
dressed  with  royal  simplicity. 

"  M3'  dear  father,"  she  said  aloud, 
taking  the  colonel  by  the  arm,  "please 
go  and  ask  after  Monsieur  de  la  Briere's 
health,  and  take  him  back  his  present. 
You  can  saj'  that  my  small  means,  as 
well  as  my  natural  tastes,  forbid  my  wear- 
ing ornaments  which  ai"e  only  suitable  for 
queens  or  courtesans.  Besides,  I  can  only 
accept  gifts  from  a  bridegroom.  Beg 
him  to  keep  the  whip  until  you  know 
whether  you  are  rich  enough  to  buy  it 
back." 

"'  My  little  girl  has  plenty  of  good 
sense,"  said  the  colonel,  kissing  his 
daughter  on  the  forehead. 

Canalis  took  advantage  of  a  conversa- 
tion which  began  between  the  duke  and 
Madame  Mignon  to  escape  to  the  terrace, 
where  Modeste  joined  him,  influenced  b^' 
curiosity,  though  the  poet  believed  her 
to  be  led  by  her  desire  to  become  Ma- 
dame de  Canalis.  Rather  alarmed  at  the 
indecency  with  which  he  had  just  executed 
what  soldiers  call  an  about-face,  which, 
according-  to  the  laws  of  ambition,  every 


MODESTE    MlGNO?i. 


449 


man  in  his  position  would  have  executed 
quite  as  brutaUj',  he  now  endeavored,  as 
the  unfortunate  Modeste  approached  him, 
to  find  plausible  excuses  for  his  conduct. 

'•  Dear  Modeste,"  he  began,  in  a  coax- 
ing- tone,  '  •  considering  the  terms  on  which 
%  we  stand  to  each  other,  shall  I  displease 
you  if  I  say  that  your  replies  to  the  Due 
d'Herouville  were  very  painful  to  a  man 
in  love — above  all,  to  a  poet  whose  soul 
is  feminine,  nervous,  full  of  the  jealousies 
of  true  passion.  I  should  make  a  poor 
diplomatist  indeed  if  I  had  not,  per- 
ceived that  3'our  first  coquetries,  your 
little  premeditated  inconsistencies,  were 
only  assumed  for  the  purpose  of  studj'ing 
our  characters — " 

Modeste  raised  her  head  with  the  rapid, 
intelligent,  half-coquettish  motion  of  a 
wild  animal,  in  whom  instinct  produces 
such  miracles  of  grace. 

"  —  and  therefore  when  I  returned  home 
and  thoug'ht  them  over,  they  never  misled 
me.  I  only  marveled  at  a  cleverness  so 
in  harmony  with  your  character  and  your 
countenance.  Do  not  be  uneasj',  I  never 
doubted  that  your  assumed  duplicity  cov- 
ered an  angelic  candor.  No,  your  mind, 
your  education,  have  in  no  way  lessened 
the  precious  innocence  which  we  demand 
in  a  wife.  You  are  indeed  a  wife  for  a  poet, 
a  diplomatist,  a  thinker,  a  man  destined 
to  endure  the  chances  and  changes  of  life ; 
and  n\y  admiration  is  equaled  only  by  the 
attachment  I  feel  to  you.  I  now  entreat 
you — if  yesterday  you  \fere  nob  playing 
a  little  comedy  when  you  accepted  the 
love  of  a  man  whose  vanity  will  change 
to  pride  if  you  accept  him,  one  whose 
defects  will  become  virtues  under  your 
divine  influence — I  entreat  you  do  not 
excite  a  passion  which,  in  him,  amounts 
to  vice.  Jealousy  is  a  noxious  element  in 
ray  soul,  and  you  have  revealed  to  me  its 
strength ;  it  is  awful,  it  destroys  every- 
thing—  Oh  I  I  do  not  mean  the  jealousy 
of  an  Othello,"  he  continued,  noticing  Mo- 
deste's  gestui'c.  "  No,  no  ;  my  thoughts 
were  of  myself  :  I  have  been  so  indulged 
on  that  point.  You  know  the  unique 
affection  to  which  I  owe  all  the  happi- 
ness I  have  ever  enjoj^ed — very  little  at 
the  best  [he  sadly  shook  his  head].     Love 

Balzac — O 


is  symbolized  among  all  nations  as  a 
child,  because  it  fancies  the  world  be- 
longs to  it,  and  it  cannot  conceive  other 
wise.  Well,  Nature  herself  set  the  limit 
to  that  sentiment.  It  was  still-born.  A 
tender,  maternal  soul  guessed  and  calmed 
the  painful  constriction  of  my  heart — for 
a  woman  who  feels,  who  knows,  that  she 
is  past  the  joys  of  love  becomes  angelic  in 
her  treatment  of  others.  The  duchess  has 
never  made  me  suffer  in  my  sensibilities. 
For  ten  years  there  has  not  been  a  word 
or  look  that  could  wound  me  !  I  attach 
more  value  to  words,  to  thoughts,  to 
looks,  than  ordinary  men.  If  a  look  is 
to  me  a  treasure  beyond  all  price,  tho 
slightest  doubt  is  deadlj-^  poison;  it  acts 
instantaneously,  and  ray  love  dies.  I  be- 
lieve— contrary  to  the  mass  of  men,  who 
delight  in  trembling,  hoping,  expecting — 
that  love  can  onlj'  exist  in  perfect,  infan- 
tile, and  infinite  security.  The  exquisite 
purgatory,  where  women  delight  to  send 
us  by  their  coquetry,  is  a  base  happiness 
to  which  I  will  not  submit :  to  me,  love  is 
either  heaven  or  hell.  If  it  is  hell,  I  will 
have  none  of  it.  I  feel  an  affinity  with  the 
azure  skies  of  Paradise  within  my  soul. 
I  can  give  raj'self  without  reserve,  with- 
out secrets,  doubts  or  deceptions,  in  the 
life  to  come  ;  and  I  deraand  reciprocity. 
Perhaps  I  offend  you  by  these  doubts. 
Eemember,  however,  that  I  ara  only 
talking  of  myself — " 

" —  a  good  deal,  but  never  too  much," 
said  Modeste,  wounded  by  every  stab  in 
this  discourse,  in  which  the  Duchesse  de 
Chaulieu  served  as  a  dagger.  "  I  am  in 
the  habit  of  admiring  you,  my  dear  poet." 

"  Well  then,  can  you  promise  me  the 
sarae  canine  fidelity  which  I  offer  to  you  ? 
Is  it  not  beautiful  ?  Is  it  not  just  what 
you  have  longed  for  ?  " 

"  But  why,  dear  poet,  do  you  not  raarry 
a  deaf-mute,  and  one  who  is  also  some- 
thing of  an  idiot  ?  I  ask  nothing  better 
than  to  please  my  husband.  But  you 
threaten  to  take  away  from  a  girl  the 
very  happiness  you  so  kindly  arrange  for 
her;  you  are  tearing  away  cA'^ery  gest- 
ure, every  word,  ever3'  look  ;  you  cut  the 
wings  of  your  bird,  and  then  expect  it 
to  hover  about  you.     I  know  poets  are 


450 


THE    HUM  AX    COMEDY. 


accused  of  inconsistencj-  —  oh  !  very  un- 
justly," she  added,  as  Canalis  made  a 
g'esture  of  denial;  "that  alleg-ed  defect 
comes  from  the  brilliant  activity  of  their 
minds  which  coniuionijlace  people  cannot 
take  into  account.  1  do  not  believe,  how- 
ever, that  a  man  of  jrenius  can  invent  such 
irreconcilable  conditions  and  call  his  in- 
vention life.  You  are  requiting'  the  ini- 
possibli!  solely  for  the  pleasure  of  putting- 
me  in  the  wrong — like  the  enchanters  in 
fairy-tales,  who  set  tasks  to  persecuted 
young  girls  who  are  rescued  by  good 
fairies."' 

"  In  this  case  the  good  fairy  would  be 
true  love,"  said  Canalis  in  a  cur-t  tone, 
aware  that  his  elaborate  excuse  for  a 
rupture  was  seen  through  by  the  keen 
and  delicate  mind  which  Butscha  had 
piloted  so  well. 

"  My  dear  poet,  you  remind  me  of  those 
fathers  who  inquire  into  a  girl's  dot  be- 
fore they  are  willing  to  name  that  of  their 
son.  You  are  quarreling  with  me  without 
knowing-  whether  you  have  the  slightest 
right  to  do  so.  Love  is  not  gained  by 
such  di-y  arguments  as  yours.  The  poor 
duke,  on  the  contrary,  gives  himself  up  to 
it  with  the  abandon  of  Uncle  Toby  ;  with 
this  difference,  that  lam  not  the  Widow 
Wadnian  —  though  widowed,  indeed,  of 
many  illusions  as  to  poetry  at  the  present 
moment.  Ah,  yes,  we  young  g-irls  will 
not  believe  in  anj'thing  that  disturbs  our 
world  of  fancy  !  I  was  warned  of  all  this 
beforehand.  My  dear  poet,  you  are  at- 
tempting to  get  up  a  quarrel  which  is  un- 
worthy of  you.  I  no  longer  recognize  the 
Mrtchior  of  yesterday." 

"Because  Melchior  has  discovered  a 
spirit  of  ambition   in  you  which — " 

Modeste  looked  at  him  from  head  to 
foot  with  an  imperial  eye. 

"  But  I  shall  be  peer  of  France  and  em- 
bassador as  well  as  he,"  added  Canalis. 

"You  take  me  for  a  bourgeoise,"  she 
said,  beginning  to  mount  the  steps  of  the 
portico :  but  she  instantly  turned  back 
and  added,  "That  is  less  impertinent  than 
to  take  me  for  a  fool.  The  change  in  your 
conduct  comes  from  certain  silly  rumors 
which  you  have  heard  in  Havre,  and  which 
my  maid  Francoise  has  repeated  to  me." 

"  Ah,  Modeste  !  how  canyon  think  it  ?" 
said  Canahs,  striking  a  dramatic  attitude. 
"  Do  you  think  me  capable  of  marrying 
you  only  for  3'our  money  ?  " 

"  If  I  do  you  that  wrong  after  your 
edifying  remarks  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine  you  can  easily  undeceive  me,"  she 
said,  annihilating  him  with  her  scorn. 

"Ah!"  thought  the  poet,  as  he  fol- 
lowed her  into  the  house,  "if  you  think, 
my  little  girl,  that  I'm  to  be 'caught  in 


that  net,  you  take  me  to  be  younger 
than  I  am.  Dear,  dear,  what  a  fuss  about 
an  artful  little  thing  whose  esteem  I  value 
about  as  much  as  that  of  the  king  of  Bor- 
neo. But  she  has  given  me  a  good  reason 
for  the  rupture  b3' accusing  me  of  such  un- 
worthy sentiments.  Isn't  she  sly  ?  La 
Briere  will  get  a  burden  on  his  back — , 
idiot  that  he  is  !  And  five  years  hence  it 
will  be  a  good  joke  to  see  them  together." 

The  coldness  which  this  altercation  pro- 
duced between  Modeste  and  Canalis  was 
visible  to  all  e3'es  that  evening.  The  poet 
Avent  off  early,  on  the  ground  of  La 
Briere's  illness,  leaving  the  field  to  the 
graiKl  equerry.  About  eleven  o'clock 
Butscha,  who  had  come  to  walk  home 
with  Madame  Latournelle,  whispered  in 
Modeste"s  ear,  "Was  I  right?" 

"Alas,  yes,"  she  said. 

"  But  I  hope  you  have  left,  the  door  half 
open,  so  that  he  can  come  back ;  we 
agreed  upon  that,  you  know." 

"Anger  got  the  better  of  me,"  said 
Modeste.  "  Such  meanness  sent  the  blood 
to  my  head  and  I  told  him  what  I  thought 
of  him." 

"Well,  so  much  the  better.  When  you 
are  both  so  ang-ry  that  you  can't  spealc 
civilly  to  each  other  I  engage  to  make  him 
desperately  in  love  and  so  pressing  that 
j'ou  will  be  deceived  yourself." 

"Remember,  Butscha;  he  is  a  great 
poet ;  he  is  a  gentleman ;  he  is  a  man  of 
intellect." 

"Your  father's  eight  millions  are  more 
to  him  than  all  that." 

"  Eight  millions  !  "  exclaimed  Modeste. 

"  My  master,  who  has  sold  his  practice, 
is  going  to  Provence  to  attend  to  the  pur- 
chase of  lands  which  j'our  father's  agent 
has  suggested  to  him.  The  sum  that  is 
to  be  paid  for  the  estate  of  La  Bastie  is 
four  millions  ;  your  father  has  agreed  lo 
it.  You  are  to  have  a  dot  of  two  millions 
and  another  million  for  an  establishment 
in  Paris,  a  hotel  and  furniture.  Now, 
count  up." 

"Ah  !  then  I  can  be  Dnchesse d'Herou- 
ville !  "  cried  Modeste,  glancing  at  But- 
scha. 

"  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  comedian  of 
a  Canalis  you  would  have  kept  his  whip, 
thinking  it  came  from  me,"  said  the 
dwarf,  indirectly  pleading  La  Briere's 
cause. 

"Monsieur  Butscha,  may  I  ask  if  I  am 
to  marry  to  please  3'ou?"  said  Modeste, 
laughing. 

"  That  fine  fellow  loves  you  as  well  as  I 
do — and  you  loved  him  for  eight  days," 
retorted  Butscha;  "and  he  has  got  a 
heart." 

"  Can  he  compete,  pray,  with  an  office 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


451 


under  the  crown  ?  There  are  but  six, 
grand  almoner,  chancellor,  g:rand  cham- 
berlain, grand  master,  high  constable, 
gcand  admiral — but  they  don't  appoint 
high  constables  any  longer." 

"  In  six  months,  mademoiselle,  the  peo- 
ple— who  are  made  up  of  \vicked  Butschas 
— could  send 'all  those  grand  dignities 
to  the  winds.  Besides,  what  signifies 
nobility  in  these  days?  There  are  not  a 
thousand  real  noblemen  in  France.  The 
D'Herouvilles  are  descended  from  a  tip- 
staff in  the  time  of  Robert  of  Normandy. 
You  will  have  to  put  up  with  many  a  vex- 
ation from  that  old  aunt  with  the  fur- 
rowed face.  Look  here — as  you  are  so 
anxious  for  the  title  of  duchess — you  be- 
long to  the  Comtat,  and  the  Pope  will 
certainly  think  as  much  of  you  as  he  does 
of  all  tliose  merchants  down  there  ;  he'll 
sell  you  a  duchy  with  some  name  ending 
in  ia  or  agno.  Dou't  play  away  your  hap- 
piness for  an  office  under  the  crown." 


XXV. 


Canalis's  reflections  during  the  night 
were  tlioroughly  matter-of-fact.  He  saw 
nothing  worse  in  life  than  the  situation 
of  a  married  man  without  money.  Still 
trembling  at  the  danger  he  had  been  led 
into  by  his  vanity,  his  desire  to  get  the 
better  of  the  duke,  and  his  belief  in  the 
Mignon  millions,  he  began  to  ask  himself 
what  the  duchess  must  be  thinking  of  his 
stay  in  Havre,  which  had  been  aggra- 
ravated  by  the  fact  that  he  had  not  writ- 
ten to  her  for  fourteen  days,  whereas  in 
Paris  they  exchanged  four  or  five  letters 
a  week. 

"And  that  poor  woman  is  working 
hard  to  get  me  appointed  commander  of 
the  Legion  and  embassador  to  the  court 
of  Baden  !  "  he  cried. 

Thereupon,  with  that  promptitude  of 
decision  which  results— in  poets  as  well 
as  in  speculators — from  a  lively  intuition 
of  the  future,  he  sat  down  and  composed 
the  following  letter  : — 

"  To  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu  : 
'•My  dear  Eleonore  —  You  have 
doubtless  been  surprised  at  not  hearing 
froua  me ;  but  the  stay  I  am  making  in 
this  place  is  not  altogether  on  account  of 
my  health.  I  have  been  trying  to  do  a 
good  turn  to  our  little'  friend  La  Briere. 
The  poor  fellow  has  fallen  in  love  with 
a  certain  Mademoiselle  ]\rodeste  de  la 
Bastie,  a  rather  pale  and  insignificant 
little  tiling,  who,  by  the  way,  has  the 
vice  of  liking  literature,  and  calls  herself 


a  poet  to  excuse  the  caprices  and  humors 
of  a  rather  sullen  nature.  You  know 
Ernest — he  is  so  easy  to  catch  that  I 
have  been  afraid  to  leave  him  alone. 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie  was  inclined 
to  coquet  with  your  Melchior,  and  was 
only  loo  ready  to  become  your  rival, 
though  her  arms  are  thin,  and  she  has 
no  more  bust  than  most  girls  ;  moreover, 
her  hair  is  as  dead  and  colorless  as  that 
of  Madame  de  Rocheflde,  and  her  eyes 
small,  gray,  and  very  suspicious.  I  put 
a  stop — perhaps  leather  brutally — to  the 
attentions  of  Mademoiselle  Immodeste  ; 
but  love,  such  as  mine  for  j'ou,  demanded 
it.  What  care  I  for  all  the  women  on 
earth — compared  to  you,  what  are  they? 

"The  people  with  whom  I  pass  my 
time,  and  who  form  the  circle  round  the 
heiress,  are  so  thoroughly  bourgeois  that 
they  almost  turn  my  stomach.  Pity  me; 
only  fancy !  I  pass  my  evenings  with 
notaries,  notaresses,  cashiers,  provincial 
money-lenders — ah  !  what  a  change  from 
my  evenings  in  the  Rue  de  Grenelle. 
The  alleged  fortune  of  the  father,  lately 
returned  from  China,  has  brought  to 
Havre  that  indefatigable  suitor,  the 
grand  equerr\',  hungry  after  the  millions, 
which  he  wants,  tlaey  say,  to  drain  his 
marshes.  The  king  does  not  know  what 
a  fatal  present  he  made  the  duke  in  those 
waste  lands.  His  grace,  who  has  not 
yet  found  out  that  the  lady  has  only  a 
small  fortune,  is  jealous  of  me ;  for  La 
Briere  is  quietly  making  progress  with 
his  idol  under  cover  of  his  triend,  who 
serves  as  a  blind. 

"  Notwithstanding  Ernest's  romantic 
ecstasies,  1  myself,  a  poet,  think  chiefly  of 
the  essential  thing,  and  I  have  been  mak- 
ing some  inquiries  which  darken  the  pros- 
pects of  our  friend.  If  my  angel  would 
like  absolution  for  some  of  our  little  sins, 
will  she  trj'  to  find  out  the  facts  of  the  case 
by  sending  for  Mongenod,  the  banker,  and 
questioning  him,  with  hei'  own  dexterity, 
as  to  the  father's  fortune  ?  Monsieur  Mi- 
gnon, formerly  colonel  of  cavalry  in  the 
Imperial  Guard,  has  been  for  the  last 
seven  years  a  correspondent  of  the  Mon- 
genods.  It  is  said  that  he  gives  his  daugh- 
ter a  doto[  two  hundi'ed  thousand  francs, 
and  before  I  make  the  offer  on  Ernest's 
behalf  I  am  anxious  to  get  the  truth  of 
the  story.  As  soon  as  the  atfair  is  ar- 
ranged I  shall  I'eturn  to  Paris.  1  know  a 
way  to  settle  everything  to  the  advantage' 
of  our  young  lover — simpl\'  by  the  trans- 
mission of  the  father-in-law's  title,  and  no 
one,  I  think,  can  more  readily  obtain  that 
favor  than  Ernest,  both  on  account  of  his 
own  services  and  the  influence  which  you 
and  I  and   the  duke  can  exert  for  him. 


452 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


With  his  tasles,  Ernest,  who  of  course 
will  step  into  my  office  when  I  g-o  to 
Baden,  will  be  perfectly  happy  in  Paris 
with  twenty-five  thousand  francs  a  year, 
a  pernuinent  place,  and  a  wife — unfortu- 
nate fellow ! 

"  Ah,  dearest,  how  I  long  for  the  Rue 
do  Grenelle  !  Fifteen  days  of  absence  ! 
when  they  do  not  kill  love,  they  revive  all 
the  ardor  of  its  earlier  days,  and  you 
know,  better  than  I,  perhaps,  the  reasons 
that  make  my  love  eternal  —  vay  bones 
will  love  thee  even  in  the  g-rave  !  All  !  I 
cannot  bear  this  separation.  If  I  am 
forced  to  stay  here  another  ten  days,  I 
shall  make  a  flying'  visit  of  a  few  hours  to 
Paris. 

"  Has  the  duke  obtained  for  me  the 
thing-  we  wanted  ;  and  shall  you,  my  dear- 
est life,  be  ordered  to  drink  the  Baden 
waters  next  year  ?  The  billing  and  cooing 
of  the  '  handsouu!  disconsolate,'  compared 
with  the  accents  of  our  happy  love — so 
true  and  changeless  for  now  ten  years  ! — 
have  given  me  a  great  contempt  for  mar- 
riage. I  had  never  seen  the  thing  so  near. 
Ah,  dearest !  what  the  world  calls  a  'false 
step  '  binds  two  beings  closer  than  the  law 
— does  it  not?  " 

The  concluding-  idea  served  as  a  text  for 
two  pages  of  reminiscences  and  aspira- 
tions a  little  too  confidential  for  publica- 
tion. 

The  evening  before  the  A:\y  on  wliich 
Canalis  put  the  above  epistle  into  the 
post,  Butscha,  under  tlie  name  of  Jean 
Jacmin,  had  received  a  letter  from  his  fic- 
titious cousin,  Philoxene,  and  had  mailed 
his  answer,  which  thus  preceded  the  letter 
of  the  poet  by  about  twelve  hours.  Ter- 
ribly anxious  for  the  last  two  weeks,  and 
wounded  by  Melchior's  silence,  the  duchess 
herself  dictated  Philoxene"s  letter  to  her 
cousin,  and  the  moment  she  had  read  the 
answer,  rather  too  explicit  for  her  vanity, 
she  sent  for  the  banker  and  made  close  in- 
quiries as  to  the  exact  fortune  of  Monsieur 
Mignon.  Finding  herself  betrayed  and 
abandoned  fortlie  millions,  Eleonore  gave 
way  to  a  paroxysm  of  anger,  hatred,  and 
cold  vindictiveness.  Philoxene  knocked 
at  the  door  of  the  sumptuous  room,  and 
entei-ing  found  her  mistress  with  her  eyes 
full  of  tears — so  unprecedented  a  phenom- 
enon in  the  fifteen  years  she  had  waited 
upon  her  that  the  woman  stopped  short 
stupefied. 

'•■  We  expiate  the  happiness  of  ten  years 
in  ten  minutes,"  she  heard  the  duchess 
say. 

"A  letter  from  Havre,  madame." 

Eleonore  read  the  poet's  prose  without 
noticing  the  presence  of  Philoxene,  whose 


amazement  became  still  greater  when  she 
saw  the  dawn  of  fresh  serenity  on  the 
duchess's  face  as  she  read  further  and 
further  into  the  letter.  Hold  out  a  pole 
no  thicker  than  a  walking-stick  to  a 
drowning  man,  and  he  will  think  it  a 
royal  road  of  safety.  The  happy  Eleonore 
believed  in  Canalis's  good  fiaith  when  she 
had  read  through  the  four  pages  in  wliich 
love  and  business,  falsehood  and  truth, 
ojstled  each  other.  Slie  who,  a  few  mo- 
ments earlier,  had  sent  for  hef  husband 
to  prevent  Melchior's  appointment  while 
there  was  still  time,  was  now  seized  with 
a  spirit  of  generosity  that  amounted 
almost  to  the  sublime. 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  she  thought ;  "he  has 
not  had  one  faithless  thought ;  he  loves 
me  as  he  did  on  the  first  daj^ ;  he  tells  me 
all —  Philoxene  !  "  she  cried,  noticing  her 
maid,  who  was  standing  near  and  pre- 
tending to  arrange  the  toilet-table. 

•'  Madame  la  Duchesse  ?  " 

"  A  mirror,  child  !  " 

Eleonore  looked  at  herself,  saw  the  fine 
razor-like  lines  traced  on  her  brow,  which 
disappeared  at  a  little  distance  ;  she  sigh- 
ed, and  in  that  sigh  she  felt  she  bade 
adieu  to  love.  A  brave  thought  came 
into  her  mind,  a  manly  thought,  outside 
of  all  the  pettiness  of  women — a  thought 
which  intoxicates  for  a  moment,  and 
which  explains,  perhaps,  the  clemeni-y  of 
the  Semiramis  of  Russia,  when  she  mar- 
ried her  young  and  beautiful  rival  to 
Moinonoff. 

"  Since  he  has  not  been  faithless,  he 
shall  have  the  girl  and  her  millions,"  she 
thought—' '  provided  Mademoiselle  Mi- 
gnon is  as  ugly  as  he  says  she  is." 

Three  raps,  elegantly  given,  announced 
the  duke,  and  his  wife  went  herself  to  the 
door  to  let  him  in. 

"  Ah  !  I  see  you  are  better,  my  dear," 
he  cried,  with  the  counterfeit  joy  that 
courtiers  assume  so  easily-,  and  by  which 
fools  are  so  readily  taken  in. 

"  My  dear  Henri,"  she  answered,  "  why 
is  it  you  have  not  yet  obtained  that  op- 
pointment  for  Melchior — you  who  sacri- 
ficed so  much  to  the  king-  in  taking  a 
ministry  which  you  knew  could  only  last 
one  year." 

The  duke  glanced  at  Philoxene,  who 
showed  him  by  an  almost  imperceptible 
sign  the.letter  from  Havre  on  the  dressing- 
table. 

"  You  would  be  terribly  bored  at  Baden 
and  come  back  at  daggers  drawn  with 
Melchior,"  said  the  duke. 

"Pray  why?" 

"  Why,  you  would  always  be  together," 
said  the  former  diplomat,  with  comic  good- 
humor. 


MODESTE    MIGNOX. 


453 


"Oh,  no,"  she  said;  "I  am  going  to 
get  him  married." 

"If  we  can  believe  d'Herouville,  our 
dear  Cinalis  stands  in  no  need  of  j^our 
help  in  that  direction,"  said  the  duke, 
smiling.  "  Yesterday  Grandlieu  read  me 
some  passages  from  a  letter  the  grand 
equerry  had  written  him.  No  doubt  they 
were  dictated  by  the  aunt  for  the  express 
purpose  of  their  I'eaching  you,  for  Made- 
moiselle d'Herouville,  always  on  the  scent 
of  a  dot,  knows  that  Grandlieu  and  I  play 
whist  nearly  every  evening.  That  good 
little  d'Herouville  wants  the  Prince  de 
Cadignan  to  go  down  and  give  a  i-oyal 
hunt  in  Normandy,  and  endeavor  to  per- 
suade the  king  to  be  present,  so  as  to 
turn  the  head  of  the  damozel  when  she 
sees  herself  the  object .  of  such  a  grand 
affair.  In  short,  two  words  from  Charles 
X.  would  settle  the  matter.  D'Herouville 
says  the  girl  has  incomparable  beauty — •" 

"  Henri,  let  us  go  to  Havre  !  "  cried 
the  duchess,  interrupting  him. 

"Under  what  pretext?"  said  her  hus- 
band, gravely;  he  had  been  one  of  the 
confidants  of  Louis  XVIII. 

"I  never  saw  a  hunt." 

"  It  would  be  all  very  well  if  the  king 
went ;  but  it  is  a  terrible  bore  to  go  so 
far,  and  he  will  not  do  it ;  I  have  just 
been  speaking  with  him  about  it." 

"  Perhaps  Madame  would  go  ?  " 

"  That  would  be  better,"  returned  the 
duke.  "  I  daresay  the  Duchesse  de  Mau- 
frigneuse  would  help  you  to  persuade  her 
from  Rosny.  If  she  goes,  the  king  will 
not  be  displeased  at  the  use  of  his  hunting 
equipage.  Don't  go  to  Havre,  my  dear," 
added  the  duke,  paternally,  "  that  would 
be  giving  yourself  away.  Come,  here's  a 
better  plan,  I  tliink.  Gaspard's  chateau 
of  Rosembi-ay  is  on  the  other  side  of  the 
forest  of  Brotonne ;  why  not  give  him  a 
hint  to  invite  the  whole  party  ?  " 

"  He  invite  them  ?  "  said  Eleonorc. 

"I  mean,  of  course,  the  duchess;  she 
is  always  engaged  in  pious  works  with 
Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  ;  give  that  old 
maid  a  hint,  and  get  her  to  speak  to 
Gaspard." 

"  You  are  a  love  of  a  man,"  cried  Eleo- 
nore;  "I'll  write  to  the  old  maid  and  to 
Diane  at  once,  for  we  must  get  hunting 
things  made — a  riding  hat  makes  one 
look  so  young.  Did  you  win  last  night 
at  the  English  embassy  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  duke  ;  "  I  cleared  my- 
self." 

"  Henri,  above  all  things,  stop  proceed- 
ings about  Melchior's  two  appointments." 

After  writing  half  a  dozen  lines  to  the 
beautiful  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse,  and  a 
short  hint  to  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville, 


Eleonore  sent  the  following  answer  like 
the  lash  of  a  whip  through  the  poet's 
lies. 

"  To  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Canalis  : 

"My  deak  Poet — Mademoiselle  de  la 
Bastie  is  very  beautiful ;  Mongenod  has 
proved  to  me  that  her  father  has  mil- 
lions. I  did  think  of  marrying  you  to 
her ;  I  am  therefore  much  displeased  at 
your  want  of  confidence.  If  you  had  anj' 
intention  of  marrying  La  Briere  when 
you  went  to  Havre  it  is  surprising  that 
you  said  nothing  to  me  about  it  before 
you  started.  And  why  have  you  omitted 
writing  to  a  friend  who  is  so  easily  made 
anxious  as  I  ?  Your  letter  arrived  a 
trifle  late  ;  I  had  already  seen  the 
banker.  You  are  a  child,  Melchior,  and 
you  are  playing  tincks  with  us.  It  is 
not  right.  The  duke  himself  is  quite  in- 
dignant at  your  proceedings. 

"I  desire  to  see  things  for  myself.  I 
shall,  I  believe,  have  the  honor  of  accom- 
panying Madame  to  the  hunt  which  the 
Due  d'Herouville  proposes  to  give  for 
Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie.  I  will  manage 
to  have  you  invited  to  Rosembray,  for 
the  meet  will  probably  take  place  in  Due 
de  Verneuil's  park. 

"  Pray  believe,  my  dear  poet,  that  I 
am  none  the  less,  for  life, 

"Your  friend,         Eleonore  de  M." 

"  There,  Ernest,  just  look  at  that !  " 
cried  Canalis,  tossing  the  letter  at  Er- 
nest's nose  across  the  breakfast-table ; 
"that's  the  two  thousandth  love-letter  I 
have  had  from  thai,  woman,  and  there 
isn't  even  a  '  thou  '  in  it.  The  illustrious 
Eleonore  has  never  compromised  herself 
more  than  she  does  there.  Marry,  if  you 
like.  The  worst  marriage  in  the  world  is 
better  than  this  sort  of  halter.  Ah,  I  am 
the  greatest  Nicodemus  that  ever  tumbled 
out  of  the  moon  !  Modeste  has  millions, 
and  I've  lost  her  ;  for  we  can't  get  back 
from  the  poles,  where  we  are  to-daj',  to 
the  tropics,  where  we  were  three  daj's 
ago  !  Well,  I  am  all  the  more  anxious 
for  your  triumph  over  the  grand  equerry, 
because  I  told  the  duchess  I  came  here 
only  for  your  sake ;  and  so  I  shall  do  my 
best  for  you." 

"  Alas,  Melchior,  Modesto  nmst  needs 
have  so  noble,  so  grand,  so  well-balanced 
a  nature  to  resist  the  glories  of  tlic  court, 
and  all  these  splendoi's  cleverly  displayed 
for  her  honor  and  glory  by  th('  duke,  that 
I  cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of  such 
perfection — and  yet,  if  she  is  still  the 
Modeste  of  her  letters,  there  might  be 
hope  !  " 

"Well,  well,  you  are  a  happy  fellow. 


454 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


you  young  Boniface,  to  see  the  world  and 
your"  mistress  through  sucli  i?reen  spec- 
tacles !  "  cried  Canalis,  niarchins;-  off  to 
pace  up  and  down  tlie  gartien. 

Caught  between  two  Ues,  the  poet  was 
at  a  loss  what  to  do. 

"Play  by  rule,  and  you  lose  !  "  he  cried 
presently,  sitting  down  in  the  kiosk. 
"Everyman  of  sense  would  have  acted 
as  I  did  four  days  ago,  and  got  himself 
out  of  th(?  net  in  which  I  saw  myself.  At 
such  tiuu!s  people  don't  disentangle  nets, 
they  break  through  them  !  Come,  let  us 
be  "calm,  cold,  dignified,  affronted.  Hon- 
or requires  it;  English  stiffness  is  the 
oidy  way  to  win  her  back.  After  all,  if  I 
have  to  retire  finally,  I  can  always  fall 
back  on  my  old  happiness  ;  a  fidelity  of 
ten  years  can't  go  luirewarded.  Eleonore 
will  arrange  some  good  marriage  for  me." 


XXVI. 


The  hunt  was  destined  to  be  a  rendez- 
vous of  all  the  passions  excited  by  the 
colonel's  millions  and  Modeste's  beauty ; 
and  it  came  as  a  truce  between  the  ad- 
versaries. During  the  days  required  for 
its  arrangement  the  salon  of  the  villa 
Migiion  presented  the  tranquil  picture 
of  a  united  family.  Canalis,  cut  short 
in  his  role  of  injured  love  by  Modeste's 
quick  perceptions,  wished  to  appear 
courteous ;  he  laid  aside  his  pretensions, 
gave  no  further  specimens  of  his  oratory, 
and  became,  what  all  men  of  intellect  can 
be  when  they  renounce  affectation,  per- 
fectly charming.  He  talked  finances 
with  Gobenheim,  and  war  with  the 
colonel.  Germany  with  Madame  Mignon, 
and  housekeeping  with  Madame  Latour- 
nelle  —  endeavoring  to  bias  them  all  in 
favor  of  La  Briere.  The  Due  d'Herou- 
ville  left  the  field  to  his  rivals,  for  he 
was  obliged  to  go  to  Rosembray  to  con- 
sult witli  the  Due  de  Verneuil,  and  see 
tliati  the  orders  of  tlie  Royal  Huntsman, 
the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  were  carried  out. 
And  yet  the  comic  element  was  not  alto- 
gether wanting.  Modeste  found  herself 
between  the  depreciatory  hints  of  Canalis 
as  to  tlie  gallantry  of  the  grand  equerry, 
and  the  exaggerations  of  the  two  Mesde- 
inoiselles  d'Herouville,  who  passed  every 
evening  at  the  villa.  Canalis  made  Mo- 
deste take  notice  that,  instead  of  being 
the  heroine  of  the  hunt,  she  would  scarcely 
be  noticed.  Madame  would  be  attended 
by  the  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse,  daugh- 
ter-in-law of  the  Prince  de  Cadignan.by 
the    Duchesse    de    Chaulieu,    and    other 


great  ladies  of  the  court,  among  whom 
a  little  girl  like  her  could  produce  no  sen- 
sation ;  no  doubt  the  officers  in  garrison 
at  Rouen  would  be  invited,  etc.  -Helene, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  incessantly  telling 
her  new  friend,  whom  she  already  looked 
upon  as  a  sister-in-law,  that  she  was  to 
be  presented  to  Madame ;  undoubtedly 
the  Due  de  Verneuil  would  invite  her 
father  and  herself  to  stay  at  Rosembray  ; 
if  the  colonel  wished  to  obtain  a  favor 
of  tlie  king — a  peerage,  for  instance — the 
opportunity  was  unique,  for  there  was 
hope  of  the  king  himself  being-  present 
on  the  third  da^' ;  she  would  be  delighted 
with  the  charming-  welcome  with  which 
the  beauties  of  the  court,  the  Duchesse 
de  Chaulieu,  de  Maufrigneuse,  de  Lenon- 
court-Chaulieu,  and  other  ladies,  were 
prepared  to  meet  her. 

It  was  in  fact  an  excessively  amusing 
little  warfare,  with  its  marches  and  coun- 
termarches and  stratagems — all  of  which 
were  keenlj^  enjoyed  by  the  Dumays,  the 
Latournelies,  Gobenheim,  and  Butscha, 
who,  in  conclave  assembled,  said  horrible 
things  of  these  noble  personages,  cruellj'^ 
noting  and  intelligently  studying  all  their 
little  meannesses. 

The  promises  on  the  d'Herouville  side 
were,  however,  confirmed  by  the  arrival 
of  an  invitation,  couched  in  flattering 
terms,  from  the  Due  de  Verneuil  and  the 
Master  of  the  Hunt  to  Monsieur  le  Comte 
de  la  Bastie  and  his  daughter,  to  stay  at 
Rosembray  and  be  present  at  a  grand 
hunt  on  the  seventh,  eighth,  ninth  and 
tenth  of  the  following  November. 

La  Briere,  full  of  dark  presentiments, 
enjoyed  the  presence  of  Modeste  with  an 
eagerness  whose  bitter  joys  are  known 
only  to  lovers  when  they  feel  that  they 
are  parted  fatally  from  those  they  love. 
Flashes  of  joy  came  to  him  intermingled 
with  melancholy  meditations  on  the  one 
theme,  "I  have  lost  her,"  and  made  him 
all  the  more  interesting  to  those  who 
watched  him,  because  his  face  and  his 
whole  person  were  in  keeping  with  his 
profound  feeling.  There  is  notliing  more 
poetic  tlian  a  living  elegy,  animated  by  a 
pair  of  eyes,  walking  about,  and  sighing 
without  rhymes. 

The  Due  d'Herouville  arrived  at  last  to 
arrange  foi-  Modeste's  departure;  after 
crossing  the  Seine  she  was  to  be  conveyed 
in  the  duke's  caleche,  accompanied  \)y  the 
Demoiselles  d'Herouville.  The  duke  was 
charmingly  courteous  ;  he  begged  Cana- 
lis and  La  Briere  to  be  of  the  party,  as- 
suring them,  as  he  did  the  colonel,  that 
he  had  taken  particular  care  that  hunt- 
ers should  be  provided  for  them.  The 
colonel  invited  the  three  lovers  to  break- 


MODES  TH    MIGNON. 


455 


fast  on  the  morning  of  the  start.  Cana- 
lis  then  began  to  put  into  execution  a 
plan  that  he  had  been  maturing-  in  his 
own  mind  for  tlie  last  few  days  ;  namely, 
to  quietly  reconquer  Modeste,  and  throw 
over  the  duchess.  La  Brierc,  and  the 
duke.  A  g-raduate  of  diplomacy  could 
hardly  remain  long  in  the  position  in 
which  he  found  himself.  On  the  other 
hand.  La  Brien;  had  come  to  the  resolu- 
tion of  bidding-  Modeste  an  eternal  fare- 
well. Each  suitor  was  therefore  on  the 
watch  to  slip  in  a  last  word,  like  the  de- 
fendant's counsel  to  the  court  before 
judgment  is  pronounced  ;  for  all  felt  that 
the  three  weeks'  struggle  was  approach- 
ing its  conclusion.  After  dinner  on  the 
evening  befoi-e  the  start,  the  colonel  had 
taken  his  daughter  by  the  arm  and  made 
her  feel  the  necessity  of  deciding. 

"  Our  position  with  the  d'Herouville 
family  will  be  quite  intolerable  at  Rosem- 
bray,"  he  said  to  her.  "  Do  you  mean  to 
be  a  duchess  ?  "  * 

"No,  father,"  she  answered. 

"  Then  do  you  love  Canalis  ?  " 
'  "  No,  papa,  a  thousand  times  no  !  "  she 
exclaimed  with  the  impatience  of  a  child. 

The  colonel  looked  at  her  with  a  sort 
of  .loy. 

"  Ah,  I  have  not  influenced  you,"  cried 
the  true  father,  "and  I  will  now  confess 
that  I  chose  m_\  son-in-law  in  Paris  when, 
having  made  him  believe  that  I  iiad  but 
little  fortune,  he  grasped  my  hand  and 
told  me  I  took  a  weight  from  his  mind — " 

"Who  is  it  you  mean?"  asked  Mo- 
deste, coloring. 

"  The  man  of  fixed  principles  and 
sound  inorality,'"  siud  her  father,  slyly, 
repeating  the  words  which  had  dissolved 
poor  Modeste's  dream  on  tlie  day  after 
his  return. 

"I  was  not  even  thinking  of  him, 
papa.  I  beg  of  you  to  leave  me  at  lib- 
erty to  refuse  the  duke  myself ;  I  under- 
stand him,  and  I  know  how  to  soften  it 
to  him." 

"  Then  your  choice  is  not  made  ?  " 

"  Not  yet ;  there  is  another  syllable  or 
two  in  the  charade  of  ray  destiny  still 
to  be  guessed  :  but  after  I  have  had  a 
glimpse  of  court  life  at  Rosembray  I  will 
tell  you  my  secret." 

"Ah!  Monsieur  de  la  Briere,"  cried 
the  colonel,  as  the  young  man  approached 
them  along  the  garden  path  in  which 
they  were  walking.  "  I  hope  you  are 
going  to  this  hunt?  " 

"No,  colonel,"  answered  Ernest.  "I 
have  come  to  take  leave  of  you  and  of 
mademoiselle  :  I  return  to  Paris — " 

"You  have  no  curiosity,"  said  Modeste, 
interrupting,  and  looking  at  him. 


"  A  wish — but  one  I  cannot  expect — 
would  suffice  to  keep  me,"  he  replied. 

"  If  that  is  all,  you  must  stay  to  please 
me  ;  I  wish  it,"  said  the  colonel,  going 
forward  to  meet  Canalis,  and  leaving  his 
daughter  and  La  Briei'e  together  for  a 
moment. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  the  young  man, 
raising  his  eyes  to  hers  with  the  boldness 
of  a  man  without  hope,  "  I  have  an 
entreaty  to  make  of  you." 

"Of  me?" 

"  Let  me  carry  away  with  me  your 
forgiveness.  My  life  can  never  be  happy: 
it  must  be  full  of  remorse  for  having  lost 
my  happiness  —  no  doubt  by  my  own 
fault ;  but,  at  least — " 

"  Before  we  part  forever,"  said  Mo- 
deste, interrupting  him,  and  speaking  in 
a  voice  of  emotion,  "I  wish  to  ask  you 
one  thing ;  and  though  you  once  dis- 
guised yourself,  I  think  you  cannot  be 
so  base  as  to  deceive  me  now\" 

The  taunt  made  him  turn  pale,  and  he 
cried  out,  "  Oh,  you  are  pitiless  !  " 

"Will  you  be'frank?" 

"  You  have  the  right  to  ask  me  that 
degrading  question."  he  said,  in  a  voice 
weakened  by  the  violent  palpitation  of 
his  heart. 

"Well,  then,  did  you  read  m\'  letters 
to  Monsieur  de  Canalis?" 

"  No,  mademoiselle  ;  I  only  allowed 
your  father  to  read  them  to  justify  my 
love  by  showing-  him  how  it  was  born, 
and  how  sincere  my  efforts  had  been 
to  cure  you  of  your  fancy." 

"But  how  came  the  idea  of  that  un- 
worthy' masquerading  ever  to  arise  ?"  she 
said,  with  a  sort  of  impatience. 

La  Briere  related  truthfully  the  scene 
in  the  poet's  study  which  Moileste's  first 
letter  had  occasioned,  and  the  sort  of 
challenge  that  resulted  from  his  expre.ss- 
ing  a  favorable  opinion  of  a  j-oung  g-irl 
thus  led  toward  a  poet's  fame,  as  a  plant 
seeks  its  share  of  the  sun, 

"You  have  said  enough,"  answered 
Modeste,  restraining  some  emotion.  "  If 
you  have  not  my  heart,  monsieur,  you 
have  at  least  my  esteem." 

These  simple  words  gave  the  young 
man  a  violent  shock  ;  feeling  himself 
stagger,  he  leaned  a.gainst  a  tree,  like 
a  man  deprived  for  a  moment  of  reason. 
Modeste,  who  had  left  him,  turned  her 
head  and  came  hastily  back. 

"What  is  the  matter?  "  sheasked.  tak- 
ing his  hand  to  prevent  him  from  falling. 

"  Forgive  me — I  thought  you  despised 
me." 

"  But,"  she  answered,  distantly,  "  I 
did  not  say  that  I  loved  you." 

And  she  left  him  again.     But  this  time, 


456 


THE    HUMAN     COMEDY. 


in  spite  of  her  liarshness,  La  Brielre 
tiiouii-lit  he  wulkeci  on  air  ;  the  earth 
softened  under  his  feet,  tiie  trees  bore 
flowers  ;  the  skies  were  rosj',  the  air 
cerulean,  as  they  are  in  the  temples  of 
Hymen  in  those  fairy  pantomimes  which 
finish  happily.  In  such  situations  every 
woman  is  a  Janus,  and  sees  behind  her 
without  turning'  round  :  and  thus  Mo- 
deste  perceived  on  the  face  of  her  ]over 
the  indubital)ie  symptoms  of  a  love  liUe 
Butscha's— surely  the  tie  plus  ultra  of 
a  woman's  hope.  Moreover,  the  great 
value  which  La  Briere  attached  to  her 
opinion  filled  Modeste  with  an  emotion 
that  was  inestimably  sweet. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Canalis,  leaving- 
the  colonel  and  waylaying  Modeste,  "  in 
spite  of  the  little  value  you  attach  to  my 
sentiments,  my  honor  is  concerned  in  ef- 
facing a  stain  under  which  I  have  suf- 
fered too  long.  Here  is  a  letter  which  I 
received  from  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu 
five  days  after  my  arrival  in  Havre." 

He  let  Modeste  read  the  first  lines  of 
the  letter  we  have  seen,  which  the  duch- 
ess began  \)y  saying  that  she  had  seen 
Mongenod,  and  now  wished  to  marry  her 
poet  to  Modeste ;  then  he  tore  that  pas- 
sago  from  the  body  of  the  letter,  and 
placed  the  fragment,  in  her  hand. 

"I  cannot  let  you  read  the  rest,"  he 
said,  putting  the  paper  in  his  pocket ; 
"but  I  confide  these  few  lines  to  your 
discretion,  so  that  you  mux  verify  the 
writing.  A  young  girl  who  could  accuse 
me  of  ignoble  sentiments  is  quite  capable 
of  suspecting  some  collusion,  some  trick- 
erj'.  Ah,  Modeste,"  he  said,  with  tears 
in  his  voice,  "your  poet,  the  poet  of  Ma- 
dame de  Chaulieu,  has  no  less  poetry  in 
his  heart  than  in  his  mind.  You  are 
about  to  see  the  duchess ;  suspend  your 
judgment  of  me  till  then." 

He  left  Modeste  half  bewildered. 

"Oh,  dear  !  "  she  said  to  herself;  "it 
seems  they  are  all  angels — and  not  mar- 
riageable ;  the  duke  is  the  only  one  that 
belongs  to  humanity." 

"  Mademoiselle  Modeste,"  said  Butscha, 
appcai'ing  with  a  parcel  under  his  arm, 
"this  hunt  makes  me  very  uneasy.  I 
dreamed  your  horse  ran  away  with  you, 
and  I  have  been  to  Rouen  to  see  if  I  could 
get  a  Spanish  bit,  which,  they  tell  me,  a 
horse  can't  take  between  his  teeth.  I  en- 
treat you  to  use  it.  I  have  shown  it  to  the 
colonel,  and  he  has  thanked  me  more 
than  there  is  any  occasion  for." 

"Poor,  dear  Butscha  !  "  cried  Modeste, 
moved  to  tears  by  this  forethought. 

Butscha  went  skipping  off  like  a  man 
who  has  just  heard  of  the  death  of  a  rich 
uncle. 


"My  dear  father,"  said  Modeste,  re- 
turning to  the  salon  ;  "  I  should  like  to 
have  that  beautiful  whip— suppose  you 
were  to  ask  Monsieur  de  la  Briere  to  ex- 
change it  for  your  picture  by  Van  Os- 
tade." 

Modeste  looked  furtively  at  Ernest, 
while  the  colonel  made  him  this  propo- 
sition, standing  before  the  picture  which 
was  the  sole  thing  he  possessed  in  mem- 
ory of  his  campaigns,  having  bought  it 
of  a  burgher  at  Ratisbon  ;  and  she  said 
to  herself  as  La  Briere  left  the  room  pre- 
cipitately, ••  He  will  be  at  the  hunt." 

It  was  curious,  but  Modcste's  thi-ee 
lovers  each  and  all  went  to  Rosembray 
with  their  hearts  full  of  hope,  and  capti- 
vated by  her  manj'  perfections. 

Rosembray — an  estate  lately  purchased 
by  the  Due  de  Verneuil,  with  the  money 
which  fell  to  him  as  his  share  of  the 
thousand  millions  voted  as  iudenmity  for 
the  sale  of  the  lands  of  the  emigrants — 
\^s  remarkable  for  its  chateau,  whose 
magnificence  compared  only  with  that 
of  Mesniere  or  of  Balleroy.  This  impos- 
ing and  noble  edifice  was  approached  by 
a  wide  avenue  of  four  rows  of  venerable 
elms,  from  which  the  visitor  entered  an 
immense  rising  courtyard,  like  that  of 
Versailles,  with  magnificent  iron  railings 
and  two  lodges,  and  adorned  with  rows 
of  large  orange-ti'ees  in  their  tubs.  Fac- 
ing this  courtyard,  the  chateau  presented, 
between  two  fronts  of  the  main  building 
which  retreated  on  either  side  of  this  pro- 
jection, a  double  row  of  nineteen  tall  win- 
dows, with  carved  arches  and  diamond 
panes,  divided  from  each  other  by  a  series 
of  fluted  jDilasters  surmounted  by  an  en- 
tablature which  hid  an  Italian  roof,  fi-om 
which  rose  several  stone  clnmneys  masked 
by  carved  trophies  of  arms.  Rosembray 
was  built,  under  Loviis  XIV.,  by  a  fer- 
mier-general  named  Cottin.  The  facade 
toward  the  park  differed  from  that  on  the 
courtyard  by  having  a  narrower  projec- 
tion in  the  center,  with  columns  between 
five  windows,  above  which  rose  a  mag- 
nificent pediment.  The  family  of  Marigny, 
to  whom  the  estates  of  this  Cottin  were 
brought  in  marriage  by  Mademoiselle  Cot- 
tin, her  father's  sole  hen-ess,  ordered  a 
sunrise  to  be  carved  on  this  pediment  b^' 
Coysevox.  Beneath  it  were  two  angels 
unwinding  a  scroll,  on  which  was  cut  this 
motto  in  honor  of  the  Grand  Monarch, 
Sol  nobis  henignus . 

From  the  portico,  reached  by  two  grand 
circular  and  balustraded  fliglits  of  steps, 
the  view  extended  over  an  immense  fish- 
pond, as  long  and  wide  as  the  grand  canal 
at  Versailles,  beginning  at  the  foot  of  a 
grass-plot  which  compared  well  with  the 


MODEST E    MIGNON. 


457 


finest  English  lawns,  and  bordered  with 
beds  and  baskets,  then  filled  with  the 
brilliant  flowers  of  autumn.  On  either 
side  of  the  piece  of  water  two  gardens, 
laid  out  in  the  French  style,  displayed 
their  squares  and  long  straight  paths, 
like  brilliant  pages  written  in  the  ciphers 
of  Lenotre.  These  gardens  were  backed 
to  their  whole  length  by  a  border  of  near- 
ly thirty  acres  of  woodland.  From  the 
terrace  the  \iew  was  bounded  by  a  forest 
belonging  to  Rosembray  and  contiguous 
to  two  other  forests,  one  of  which  belonged 
to  the  crown,  the  other  to  the  State.  It 
would  be  difQcult  to  find  a  nobler  land- 
scape. 


XXVII. 

Modeste's  arrival  made  a  certain  sen- 
sation in  the  avenue  when  the  carriage 
with  the  liveries  of  France  came  in  sight, 
accompanied  by  the  grand  equerry,  the 
colonel,  Canalis,  nnd  La  Briere  on  horse- 
back, preceded  by  an  outrider  in  full 
dress,  and  followed  by  six  servants  — 
among  whom  were  the  negroes  and  the 
mulatto — and  the  britzka  of  the  colonel 
for  the  two  waiting-women  and  the  lug- 
gage. The  carriage  was  drawn  by  four 
horses,  which  were  ridden  by  postilions 
dressed  with  an  elegance  specially'  com- 
manded by  the  grand  equerry,  who  was 
often  better  served  than  the  king  himself. 
As  Modeste,  dazzled  by  the  magnificence 
of  the  great  lords,  entered  and  beheld  this 
lesser  Versailles,  she  suddenl3'  remembered 
her  approaching  interview  with  the  cele- 
brated duchesses,  and  began  to  fear  that 
she  might  seem  awkward,  or  provincial, 
or  parvenue  ;  in  fact,  she  lost  her  self- 
possession,  and  heartily  repented  having 
wished  for  a  hunt. 

Fortunately,  however,  as  the  carriage 
drew  up,  Modeste  saw  an  old  man,  in  a 
blonde  wig  frizzed  into  little  curl%  whose 
calm,  plump,  smooth  face  wore  a  fatherly 
smile  and  an  expression  of  monastic  cheer- 
fulness which  the  half-veiled  glance  of  the 
eye  rendered  almost  noble.  This  was  the 
Due  de  Verueuil,  master  of  Rosembray. 
The  duchess,  a  woman  of  extreme  piety, 
the  only  daughter  of  a  rich  and  deceased 
chief-justice,  syrare  and  erect,  and  the  mo- 
ther uf  four  cliildren,  resembled  Madame 
Latournelle — if  iraauination  can  go  so  far 
as  to  adorn  the  notary's  wife  with  the 
graces  of  a  bearing  like  that  of  the 
duchess. 

"Ah,  good  morning,  dear  Hortense  !  " 
said  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville,  kissing 
the  duchess  with  a  sympathy  that  united 


their  haughty  natures ;  "  let  me  present 
to  you  and  to  the  dear  duke  our  little 
angel.  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie.'' 

•■  We  have  heard  so  much  of  you,  made- 
moiselle," said  the  duchess,  "  that  we  were 
in  haste  to  receive  you." 

"  And  regret  lost  time,"  added  the 
Due  de  Verneuil,  with  courteous  admira- 
tion. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  la  Bastie,"  said 
tlie  grand  equerry,  taking  the  colonel  by 
the  arm  and  presenting  him  to  the  duke 
and  duchess,  with  an  air  of  respect  in  his 
tone  and  gesture. 

"  I  am  glad  to  welcome  a'ou.  Monsieur 
le  Comte !  "  said  Monsieur  de  Verneuil. 
"You  possess  more  than  one  treasure," 
he  added,  looking  at  Modeste. 

The  duchess  took  Modeste  under  her 
arm  and  led  her  into  an  immense  salon, 
where  a  dozen  or  more  women  were 
grouped  about  the  fire-place.  The  men 
of  the  party  remained  with  the  duke  on 
the  terrace,  except  Canalis,  who  respect- 
fully made  his  way  to  the  superb  Eleonore. 
The  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  seated  at  an 
embroidery-frame,  was  showing  Made- 
moiselle de  Verneuil  liow  to  shade  a 
flower. 

If  Modeste  had  run  a  needle  through 
her  finger  when  handling  a  pin-cushion 
she  could  not  have  felt  a  sharper  prick 
than  she  received  from  the  cold,  haughty 
and  contemptuous  stare  with  which  Ma- 
dame de  Chaulieu  favored  her.  For  an 
instant  she  saw  nothing-  but  that  one  wo- 
man, and  she  saw  through  her.  To  un- 
derstand the  depths  of  cruelty  to  which 
these  charming  creatures,  who  arc  deified 
by  our  passions,  can  go,  we  must  see  wo- 
men with  each  other.  Modpste  would 
have  disarmed  almost  any  other  than 
Eleonore  by  the  involuntary  admiration 
which  her  face  betrayed.  Had  she  not 
known  the  duchess's  age  she  would  have 
thought  her  a  woman  of  thirty-six ;  but 
other  and  greater  astonishments  awaited 
her. 

The  poet  had  hurled  himself  against  a 
great  lady's  anger.  Such  anger  is  the 
worst  of  sphinxes ;  the  face  is  radiant, 
all  the  rest  menacing.  Kings  themselves 
cannot  make  the  exquisite  politeness  of 
a  mistress's  cold  anger  capitidate  when 
she  guards  it  with  steel  armor.  Canalis 
tried" to  cling  to  the  steel,  but  his  fingers 
slipped  on  the  polished  surface,  like  his 
words  on  the  heart  :  and  the  gracious 
face,  the  gracious  words,  the  gracious 
bearing  of  the  duchess  hid  the  steel  of  her 
wrath,  now  falltni  to  twenty-five  below 
zero,  from  all  observers.  The  appearance 
of  Modeste  in  her  sublime  beauty,  and 
dressed  as  well  as  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse 


458 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


herself,  had  fired  the  train  of  gunpowder 
which  relioclion  had  been  laj-ing:  in  Eleo- 
nore's  mind. 

All  tlic  women  had  gone  to  the  win- 
dows to  see  the  new  wonder  get  out  of 
the  royal  carriage,  atteudeil  by  her  three 
suitors. 

"  Do  not  let  us  seem  so  curious,"  Ma- 
dame de  Chaulieu  had  said,  cut  to  the 
lieart  by  Diane's  exclamation,  "She  is 
divine  !  "where  in  the  world  does  she  come 
from  ? "  -and  with  that  the  bevy  flew 
back  to  their  seats,  resuming  their  com- 
posure, though  Eleonore's  heart  -was  full 
of  hungry  vipers  all  clamorous  for  a 
meal. 

Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  said  in  a  low 
voice  and  with  much  meaning  to  the  Duch- 
csse  de  Verneuil,  "  Eleonore  receives  her 
Melchior  vei-y  ungraciously." 

"  The  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  thinks 
there  is  a  coolness  between  them,"  said 
Laure  de  Verneuil,  with  simplicity. 

Charming  plirase  !  so  often  used  in  the 
world  of  society  —  how  the  north  wind 
blows  through  it. 

'•Why  so'i"  asked  Modesto  of  the 
pretty  j'oung  girl  who  had  lately  left 
the  Sacre-Cwur. 

"  The  great  poet,"  said  the  pious  duch- 
ess— making  a  sign  to  her  daughter  to  be 
silent — "left  Madame  de  Chaulieu  with- 
out a  letter  for  more  than  two  weeks  after 
he  went  to  Havre,  liaving  told  her  that 
he  went  there  for  his  liealth — " 

Modesto  made  a  hasty  movement,  which 
caught  the  attention  of  Laure,  Helene, 
and  Mademoiselle  -d'Herouville. 

"  —  and  during  that  time,'' continued 
the  devout  duchess,  •'she  was  endeavor- 
ing to  hav.e  him  appointed  commander 
of  the  Len'ion  of  Honor,  and  minister  at 
Baden." 

"  Oh,  that  was  shameful  in  Canalis  ;  he 
owes  everything  to  her,"  exclaimed  Made- 
moiselle d'Herouville. 

"  Why  ditl  not  Madame  de  Chaulieu 
come  to  Havre?"  asked  Modeste  of  He- 
lene, innocently. 

"  My  dear,"  said  tlie  Duchesse  de  Ver- 
neuil, "she  would  let  hei'self  be  cut  in 
little  pieces  without  saying  a  word.  Look 
at  her — she  is  regal ;  her  head  would 
smile,  like  Mary  Stuart's,  after  it  was  cut 
off;  in  fact,  she  has  some  of  that  blood 
in  her  veins." 

"Did  she  not  w^ite  to  him?"  asked 
Modeste. 

"Diane  tells  me,'*  answered  the  duch- 
ess, prompted  by  a  nudge  from  Mademoi- 
selle d'Herouville,  "that  in  answer  to 
Canalis's  first  letter  she  made  a  cutting 
reply  a  tew  days  ago." 

Tliis  explanation  made  Modeste  blush 


with  shame  for  the  man  before  her  ,•  she 
longed,  not  to  ci'ush  him  under  her  feet, 
but  to  revenge  herself  by  one  of  those 
malicious  acts  that  are  sharper  than  a 
dagger's  thrust.  She  looked  haughtily 
at  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu — 

"Monsieur  Melchior!"  .she  said. 

All  the  women  snuffed  the  air  and 
looked  alternately  at  the  duchess,  who 
was  talking  in  a  low  voice  to  Canalis 
over  the  embroidery-frame,  and  then  at 
the  young  girl  so  ill  br'ought  up  as  to 
disturb  a  lovers'  meeting — a  thing  not 
permissible  in  any  society.  Diane  de 
Maufrigneuse  nodded,  however,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  The  child  is  in  the  right  of 
it."  All  the  women  ended  by  smiling  at 
each  other ;  they  were  enraged  with  a 
woman  who  was  fifty-six  years  old  and 
still  handsome  enough  to  put  her  fingers 
into  the  treasury  and  steal  the  rights  of 
j^outh.  Melchior  looked  at  Modeste  with 
feverish  impatience,  and  made  the  gest- 
ure of  a  master  to  a  valet,  while  the 
duchess  lo\-ered  her  head  like  a  lioness 
disturbed  at  a  meal :  her  eyes,  fastened 
on  the  canvas,  emitted  red  flames  in  the 
direction  of  the  poet,  which  stabbed  like 
epigrams,  for  each  word  revealed  to  her 
a  triple  insult. 

"  Monsieur  Melchior  !  "  said  Modeste 
again  in  a  voice  that  asserted  its  right 
to  bo  heard. 

"  What,  mademoiselle  ?  "  demanded  the 
poet. 

Forced  to  rise,  he  remained  standing 
half-way  between  the  embroidery  frame, 
which  was  near  a  window,  and  the  fire- 
place where  Modeste  was  seated  with  tlie 
Duchesse  de  Verneuil  on  a  sofa.  What 
bitter  reflections  came  into  his  ambitious 
mind,  as  he  caught  a  glance  from  Eleo- 
nore. li  he  obeyed  Modeste  all  was  over, 
and  forever,  between  hio:self  and  his  pro- 
tectress. Not  to  obey  her  wns  to  avow 
his  slavery,  to  lose  the  chances  of  his 
twenty-flve  days  of  base  maneuvering, 
and  to  ^disregard  the  plainest  laws  of 
decency  and  civility.  The  greater  the 
folly,  the  more  imperatively  the  duchess 
exacted  it.  Modeste's  beauty  and  money 
thus  pitted  against  Eleonore's  rights  and 
influence  made  this  hesitation  between  the 
man  and  his  honor  as  terrible  to  witness 
as  the  peril  of  a  matadore  in  the  arena. 
A  man  seldom  feels  such  palpitations  as 
those  which  now  came  to  Canalis,  except, 
perhaps,  before  the  green  table,  where 
his  fortune  or  his  ruin  is  about  to  be 
decided. 

"Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  hurried  me 
from  the  carriage,  and  I  left  behind  me," 
said  Modeste  to  Canalis,  "my  handker- 
chief—" 


MODESTE    MIGXON. 


459 


Canalis  shrug-ged  his  shoulders  signifi- 
cantly. 

'•'And,"'  continued  Modeste,  taking-  no 
notice  of  liis  gesture,  "I  had  tied  into 
one  corner  of  it  the  key  of  a  desk  wiiicli 
contains  tlie  fragment  of  an  important 
letter ;  have  the  kindness,  Monsieur  Mel- 
chior,  to  get  it  for  me." 

Between  an  angel  and  a  tiger  equally 
enraged  Canalis,  who  had  turned  livid, 
no  longer  hesitated — the  tiger  seemed  to 
him  the  least  dangerous  of  the  two  ;  and 
he  was  about  to  do  as  he  was  told,  and 
commit  himself  ii'retrievahly,  when  La 
Briere  appeared  at  the  door  of  the  salon, 
seeming  to  his  anguished  mind  like  the 
archangel  Gabriel  tumbling  from  heaven. 

'•'  Ernest,  here.  Mademoiselle  de  la 
Bastie  wants  you,"  said  the  poet,  hastily 
returning  to  his  chair  by  the  embroidery 
frame. 

Ernest  hastened  to  Modeste  without 
bowing  to  any  one ;  he  saw  only  her, 
took  his  commission  with  undisguised 
joy,  and  darted  from  the  room,  with  the 
secret  approbation  of  every  woman  pres- 
ent. 

"  What  an  occupation  for  a  poet ! " 
said  Modeste  to  Helene  d'Herouville, 
glancing  toward  the  embroidery  at  which 
the  duchess  was  now  working  savagely. 

'■  If  you  speak  to  her,  if  j'ou  ever  look 
at  her,  all  is  over  between  us,"  said  the 
duchess  to  the  poet  in  a  low  voice,  not  at 
all  satisfied  with  the  very  doubtful  ter- 
mination which  Ernest's  arrival  had  put 
to  the  scene;  "and  remember,  if  I  am 
not  present,  I  leave  behind  me  eyes  that 
will  watch  you." 

So  sa^-ing,  the  duchess,  a  woman  of 
medimn  height,  but  a  little  too  stout, 
like  all  women  over  fifty  who  retain  their 
beauty,  rose  and  walked  toward  the 
group  which  surrounded  Diane  de  Mau- 
frigneuse,  walking  daintily  on  little  feet 
that  were  as  slender  and  nervous  as  a 
deer's.  Modeste,  together  with  all  the 
other  antagonists  of  the  duchess,  recog- 
nized in  her  a  woman  of  whom  they  were 
forced  to  say.  '•'  She  eclipses  us."  In  fact, 
Eleonore  was  one  of  the  grandes  dames 
now  so    rare. 

Madame  de  Chaulieu  bowed  her  head  in 
salutation  of  Helene  and  her  aunt :  then, 
saying  to  Diane,  in  a  pure  and  equable 
tone  of  voice,  without  a  trace  of  emotion, 
"Is  it  not  time  to  dress,  duchess  ?  "  she 
made  her  exit,  accompanied  by  her  daugh- 
ter-in-law and  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville. 
As  she  left  the  room  she  spolce  in  an  un- 
dertone to  the  old  maid,  who  pressed  her 
arm,  saying,  "You  are  charming,"  — 
which  meant,  "  I  am  grateful  for  the  ser- 
vice you  have  just  done  us."    After  that, 


Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  returned  to  the 
salon  to  play  lier  part  of  spy,  and  her 
first  glance  apprised  Canalis  that  the 
duchess  had  made  him  no  empty  threat. 
When  Ernest  returned,  bringing  Mo- 
deste's  handkerchief,  the  poet  seized  his 
arm  and  took  him  out  on  the  terrace. 

"My  dear  friend,"  he  said,  "I  am  not 
only  the  most  unfortunate  man  in  the 
workl,  but  I  am  also  tlie  most  ridiculous  ; 
and  I  come  to  you  to  get  me  out  of  the 
hornet's  nest  into  which  I  have  nin  my- 
self. Modeste  is  a  demon ;  she  sees  my 
difficulty  and  she  laughs  at  it :  she  has 
just  spoken  to  me  of  a  frag'ment  of  a  let- 
ter of  Madame  de  Chaulieu,  which  I  had 
the  folly  to  give  her;  if  she  shows  it  I 
can  never  make  my  peace  with  Eleonore. 
Therefore,  will  you  at  once  ask  Modeste 
to  send  me  back  that  paper,  and  tell  her, 
from  me,  that  I  make  no  pretensions  to 
her  hand.  Say  I  count  upon  her  delicacy, 
upon  her  propriety  as  a  young  girl,  to 
behave  to  me  as  if  we  had  never  known 
each  other.  I  beg  her  not  to  speak  to 
me  ;  I  implore  her  to  treat  me  harshly — 
though  I  hardlj'  dare  to  ask  her  to  feign 
a  jealous  anger,  which  would  help  my  in- 
terests amazingly.  Go,  I  will  wait  here 
for  an  answer." 


XXVIII. 

When  he  re-entered  the  salon  Ernest 
de  la  Briere  found  there  a  young  officer  of 
the  company  of  the  Guard  d'Havre.  the 
Vicomte  de  Serizy,  who  had  just  arrived 
from  Rosny  to  announce  that  Madame 
was  obliged  to  be  present  at  the  opening 
of  the  Chambers.  We  know  the  impor- 
tance then  attached  to  this  constitutional 
solemnity,  at  which  Charles  X.  delivered 
his  speech,  surrounded  by  the  royal  fami- 
Ij'  —  Madame  la  Dauphine  and  Madame 
being  present  in  their  gallery.  The  choice 
of  the  emissary  charged  with  the  duty  of  _ 
expressing  the  princess's  regrets  was  an " 
attention  to  Diane,  who  was  then  an  ob- 
ject of  adoration  to  this  charming  young 
man,  son  of  a  minister  of  state,  gentle- 
man in  ordinary  of  the  chamber,  only  son 
and  heir  to  an  immense  fortune.  The 
Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  permitted  his 
attentions  soleh'  for  the  purpose  of  at- 
tracting notice  to  the  age  of  his  mother, 
Madame  de  Serizy,  who  was  said,  in  those 
chronicles  that  are  whispei'ed  behind  the 
fans,  to  have  deprived  her  of  the  heart  of 
the  handsome  Lucien  de  Rubempre. 

"■  You  will  do  us  the  pleasure,  I  hope, 
to  remain  at  Rosembray."  said  the  severe 
duchess  to  the  young  officer. 

While  opening  her  ears  to  every  scan- 


460 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY 


dal.  the  dovoui  ladj'  shut  her  ej^es  to  the 
derelictions  of  lier  g:uests  who  had  been 
cai-efuliy  selected  by  the  duke  ;  indeed,  it 
is  surprising'  how  much  these  excellent 
women  ^viH  tolerate  under  pretense  of 
bring-in.a-  the  lost  sheep  back  to  the  fold 
by  their  indulg'ence. 

'•■  We  reckoned  without  our  constitu- 
tional g-overninent,"  said  the  grand 
equerry  ;  "  and  Rosembray,.  Madame  la 
Duchesse.  wdll  lose  a  great  honor." 

'•We  shall  be  more  at  our  ease,"  said 
a  tall  tbin  old  man,  about  seventy-five 
years  of  age,  dressed  in  blue  cloth,  and 
wearing  his  hunting-cap  by  permission  of 
the  ladies.  This  personage,  who  closely 
resembled  the  Due  de  Bourbon,  was  no 
less  than  the  Prince  de  Cadignan.  Master 
of  the  Hunt,  and  one  of  the  last  of  the 
great  French  lords.  Just  as  La  Briere 
was  endeavoring  to  slip  behind  the  sofa 
and  obtain  a  moment's  intercourse  with 
Modeste,  a  man  of  thirty-eight,  short, 
fat,  and  very  common  in  appearance, 
entered  the  room. 

"My  son,  the  Prince  de  Loudon,"  said 
the  Dilchesse  de  Verneuil  to  Modeste,  who 
could  not  restrain  the  expression  of  amaze- 
ment tluit  ovei'spread  her  young  face  on 
seeing  the  man  who  bore  the  historical 
name  that  the  hero  of  La  Vendee  had 
rendered  famous  by  his  bravery  and  the 
martyrdom  of  his  death. 

"Gaspaixl,"  said  the  duchess,  calling 
her  son  to  her.  The  young  prince  came  at 
once,  and  his  mother  continued,  motioning 
to  llodeste,  "  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bastie, 
my  son." 

Tlie  hcii"  presumptive,  whose  marriage 
with  Desplein's  only  daughter  had  lately 
been  arranged,  bowed  to  the  young  girl 
without  seeming  struck,  as  his  father  had 
been,  with  her  beauty.  Modeste  was  thus 
enabled  to  compare  the  youth  of  to-day 
wit  h  the  old  age  of  a  past  epoch  ;  for  the 
old  Prince  de  Cadignan  had  already  said 
a  few  words  which  made  her  feel  that  he 
rendered  as  true  a  homage  to  womanhood 
as  to  roj'alty.  The  Due  de  Rhetore,  the 
eldest  son  of  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu, 
chiefly  ren^arkable  for  manners  that  were 
equally  impertinent  and  free  and  easy, 
bowed  to  Modeste  rather  cavalierly.  The 
reason  of  this  contrast  between  the  fathei's 
and  the  sons  is  to  be  found,  probably,  in 
the  fact  that  young  men  uo  longer  feel 
themselves  great  beings,  as  their  fore- 
fathers did,  and  they  dispense  with  the 
duties  of  greatness,  knowing  well  that 
they  are  now  but  the  shadow  of  it.  The 
fathers  have  still  the  inherent  politeness 
of  their  vanished  grandeur,  like  the 
mountain-tops  still  gilded  by  the  sun  when 
all  is  shadowy  in  the  valley. 


Ernest  was  at  last  able  to  slip  a  word 
into  Modeste's  ear,  and  she  rose  at  once. 

"My  dear,"  said  the  duchess,  thinking 
she  was  going  to  di'ess,  and  pulling  a  bell- 
rope,  '"'they  shall  show  you  your  apart- 
ment." 

Ernest  accompanied  Modeste  to  the  foot 
of  the  grand  staircase,  presenting  the  re- 
quest of  the  luckless  poet,  and  endeavor- 
ing to  touch  her  feelings  by  describing 
Melchior's  agony. 

"  You  see,  he  loves — he  is  a  captive  who 
thought  he  could  break  his  chain." 

"  Love  in  such  a  rabid  seeker  after  fort- 
une ! "  retorted  Modeste. 

"Mademoiselle,  you  are  at  the  entrance 
of  life  ;  you  do  not  know  its  delUes.  The 
inconsistencies  of  a  man  who  falls  under 
the  dominion  of  a  woman  much  older  than 
himself  should  be  forgiven,  for  he  is  really 
not  accountable.  Think  how  many  sacri- 
fices Canalis  has  made  to  her.  He  has 
sown  too  much  seed  of  that  kind  to  re- 
sign the  harvest ;  the  duchess  repi-esents 
to  him  ten  years  of  devotion  and  happi- 
ness. You  made  him  forget  all  that, 
and  unfortunately,  he  has  more  vanity 
than  pride ;  he  did  not  reflect  on  what  he 
was  losing  until  he  met  Madame;  de  Chau- 
lieu here  to-day.  If  you  really  imder- 
stood  him,  you  would  help  him.  He  is 
a  child,  always  mismanaging  his  life. 
You  call  him  a  seeker  after  fortune,  but 
he  seeks  very  badly :  like  all  poets,  he  is 
the  victim  of  sensations;  he  is  childish, 
easily  dazzled  like  a  child  by  anything 
that  shines,  and  pursuing  its  glitter.  He 
used  to  love  horses  and  pictures,  and  he 
craved  fame — well,  he  sold  his  pictures  to 
buy  armor  and  old  furniture  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  Louis  XV.;  just  now  he  is 
seeking  i^olitical  power.  Admit  that  his 
hobbies  arc  noble  things." 

"You  have  said  enough,"  replied  Mo- 
deste ;  then,  seeing  her  father,  whom  she 
called  with  a  motion  of  her  head  to  give 
her  his  arm,  she  added,  "  come  with  me, 
and  I  will  give  you  that  scrap  of  paper  ;• 
j'ou  shall  carry  it  to  the  great  man  and 
assure  him  of  my  condescension  to  his 
wishes,  but  on  one  condition — you  must 
thank  him  in  my  name  for  the  pleasure  I 
have  taken  in  seeing  one  of  the  finest  of 
the  German  plays  performed  in  my  honor. 
I  have  learned  that  Goethe's  masterpiece 
is  neither  Faust  nor  Egmont — "  and  then, 
as  Ernest  looked  at  the  malicious  girl 
with  a  puzzled  air,  she  continued  :  "  It 
is  Torquato  Tasso  !  Tell  Monsieur  de  Ca- 
nalis to  re-read  it,"  she  added  smiling; 
"I  particularly  desire  that  you  Avill  re- 
peat to  your  friend  word  for  woi'd  what 
I  say  ;  for  it  is  not  an  epigram,  it  is  the 
justification    of   his   conduct  —  with    this 


MOD  EST E    MIGNON. 


461 


trifling'  difference,  that  he  will.  I  trust, 
become  more  and  more  reasonable,  thanks 
to  the  folly  of  his  Eleonore." 

The  duchess's  head-woman  conducted 
Modeste  and  her  father  to  their  apart- 
ment, where  Fran(joise  Cochel  had  al- 
I'eady  put  everything  in  order.  The 
choice  elegance  of  the  rooms  astonished 
the  colonel,  more  especially  after  he 
heard  from  Francoise  that  there  were 
thirty  other  apartments  in  the  chateau 
decorated  with  the  same  taste. 

"  This  is  what  I  call  the  right  kind  of  a 
country-house,"  said  Modeste. 

"  Tlie  Coaite  de  la  Bastie  must  build 
you  one  hke  it,"  replied  her  father. 

"Here,  monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  giv- 
ing the  bit  of  paper  to  Ernest;  "carry 
it  to  our  friend  and  put  him  out  of  his 
misery." 

The  word  our  friend  sti-uck  the  young 
man's  heart.  He  looked  at  Modeste  to 
see  if  there  was  anythin.i;-  real  in  the  com- 
munity of  interests  which  she  seemed  to 
admit,  and  she,  understanding  perfectly 
what  his  look  meant,  added,  '•  Come,  go 
at  once,  your  friend  is  waiting." 

La  Briere  colored  excessively,  and  left 
the  room  in  a  state  of  doubt  and  anxiety 
less  endurable  than  despair.  The  path 
that  approaches  happiness  is,  to  the  true 
lover,  like  the  narrow  waj^  which  Cath- 
olic poetry  has  well  named  the  entrance 
to  Paradise — a  dark  and  gloomy  passage, 
echoing  with  the  last  cries  of  earthly  an- 
guish. 

An  hour  later  the  illustrious  company 
were  all  assembled  in  the  salon;  some 
were  playing  whist,  others  conversing- ; 
the  women  had  their  embroideries  in 
hand,  and  all  were  waiting  the  announce- 
ment of  dinner.  The  Prince  de  Cadignan 
was  drawing  Monsieur  Mignon  out  upon 
China,  and  his  campaigns  under  the 
empire,  and  making  him  talk  about  the 
Portendueres,  the  L'Estorades,  and  the 
Maucombes,  Provengal  families ;  he 
blamed  him  for  not  seeking  service, 
and  assured  him  that  nothing  would 
be  easier  than  to  restore  him  to  his 
rank  as  colonel  of  the  Guard. 

"  A  man  of  your  birth  and  your  fort- 
une ought  not  to  belong-  to  the  present 
Opposition,"  said  the  prince,  smiling. 

This  society  of  distinguished  persons 
not  only  pleased  Modeste,  but  it  enabled 
her  to  acquire,  during  her  stay,  a  perfec- 
tion of  manners  which  without  this  reve- 
lation she  would  have  lacked  all  her  life. 
Show  a  clock  to  an  embryo  mechanic, 
and  you  reveal  to  him  the  whole  mechan- 
ism ;  he  thus  develops  the  germs  of  his 
faculty  which  lie  dormant  within  him.  In 
like  manner  Modeste  had  the  instinct  to 


appropriate  the  distinctive  qualilies  of 
Madame  de  Maufrigneuse  and  Madame 
de  Chaulieu.  For  her,  the  sight  of  tliose 
women  was  an  education ;  whereas  a 
bourgeoise  would  merely  have  ridiculed 
their  ways  or  made  them  absurd  by 
clumsy  imitation.  A  well-born,  well- 
educated,  and  right-minded  girl  like  Mo- 
deste fell  naturally  into  rapport  with 
these  people,  and  saw  at  once  the  ditTer- 
ences  that  separate  the  aristocratic  woi-ld 
from  the  bourgeois,  the  provmces  from 
the  Faubourg  Saint  Germain  ;  slie  caught 
the  almost  imperceptible  shadings;  in 
short,  she  perceived  the  grace  of  the 
grande  dame  without  doul)ting  that  she 
could  herself  acquire  it.  She  noticed  also 
that  her  father  and  La  Briere  appeared 
infinitely  better  in  this  Olympus  than 
Canalis.  Ernest  de  la  Briere,  without 
ambitions,  was  able  to  be  himself  ;  while 
Melchior  became,  to  use  a  vulgar  expres- 
sion, a  mere  toady,  and  courted  the  Prince 
de  Loudon,  the  Due  de  Rhetore,  the  Vi- 
comte  de  Serizy,  or  the  Due  de  Maufri- 
gTieuse,  like  a  man  not  free  to  assert 
himself,  as  did  Colonel  Mignon,  who  was 
justly  proud  of  his  campaigns,  and  of  the 
confidence  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon. 
Modeste  took  note  of  the  strained  efforts 
of  the  man  of  talent,  who  was  alwaj^s 
seeking  some  witticism  that  should  raise 
a  laugh,  some  clever  speech,  some  com- 
pliment with  which  to  flatter  these  grand 
personages,  whom  it  was  his  interest  to 
please.  In  a  word,  in  Modeste's  eyes  the 
peacock  plucked  out  his  tail-feathers. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  evenmg  the 
young  girl  sat  down  with  the  grand 
equerry  in  a  coi-ner  of  the  salon.  She 
led  him  there  purposely  to  end  a  suit 
which  she  could  no  longer  encourage 
if  she  wished  to  retain  her  self-respect. 

"Monsieur  le  Due,  if  j'ou  really  knew 
me,"  she  said,  "you  would  understand 
how  deeply  I  am  touched  by  your  atten- 
tions. It  is  because  of  the  profound  re- 
spect I  feel  for  your  character,  and  the 
friendship  which  a  soul  like  yours  inspires 
in  mine,  that  I  cannot  endure  to  wound 
your  self-love.  Before  your  arrival  in 
Havre  I  loved  sincerefy,  deeply,  and 
forever,  one  who  is  worthy  of  being 
loved ;  my  affection  for  him  is  still  a 
secret ;  but  I  wish  you  to  know — and  in 
saying  this  I  am  more  sincere  than  most 
young  girls  —  that  had  I  not  already 
formed  this  voluntary  attachment,  you 
would  have  been  my  choice,  for  I  rec- 
ognize your  noble  and  beautiful  qualities. 
A  few  words  which  your  aunt  and  sister 
have  said  to  me  as  to  your  intentions  lead 
me  to  make  this  frank  avowal.  If  you 
think  it  desirable,  a  letter  from  my  mother 


463 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


shall  i-ecall  ine,  on  pretense  of  her  illness, 
to-morrow  niorning  before  the  launt  be- 
g-ins.  Without  your  consent  I  do  not 
choose  to  be  present  at  a  fete  which  I  owe 
to  vour  kindness,  and  where,  if  my  secret 
should  escape  me,  you  might  feel  hurt  and 
defrauded.  You  will  ask  me  why  I  have 
come  here  at  all.  I  could  not  withstand 
the  invitation.  Be  srenei'ous  enough  not  to 
reproach  me  for  what  was  almost  an  iire- 
pressible  curiosity.  But  this  is  not  the 
chief,  nor  the  most  delicate  thing  I  have 
to  say  to  you.  You  have  firm  friends  in 
my  father  and  myself— more  so  than  per- 
haps you  realize  ;  and  as  my  fortune  was 
the  first  cause  that  brought  you  to  me,  I 
wish  to  say — but  without  intending  to  use 
it  as  a  sedative  to  calm  the  grief  which 
gallantry  requires  you  to  testify — that  my 
father  has  tliought  over  the  affair  of  the 
marshes :  his  friend  Dumay  thinks  your 
project  feasible,  and  they  have  already 
taken  slepsto  form  a  company.  Goben- 
heiin,  Dumay,  and  my  father  liave  sub- 
scribed fifteen  hundred  thousand  francs, 
and  Ihey  imdertake  to  get  the  rest  from 
capitalists,  who  will  feel  it  their  interest 
to  take  up  the  matter.  If  I  have  not  the 
honor  of  becoming  the  Duchesse  d'Herou- 
ville,  I  have  almost  the  certainty  of  en- 
abling you  to  choose  hex',  free  from  all 
trammels  in  your  choice,  and  in  a  higher 
sphere  than  mine.  Oh  !  let  me  finish," 
she  added,  at  a  gesture  from  the  duke. 

"Judging  by  my  nephew's  emotion," 
whispered  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  to 
her  niece,  "it  is  easy  to  see  you  have  a 
sister." 

"  Monsieur  le  Due.  all  this  Avas  settled 
in  nw  mind  on  the  day  of  our  first  i-ide, 
when  I  heard  you  deplore  your  situation. 
This  is  wluit  I  have  wished  to  say  to 
you.  Tliat  day  determined  my  future  life. 
Though  you  did  not  make  the  conquest  of 
a  woman,  you  have  at  least  gained  faith- 
ful friends  of  Ingouville — if  you  will  deign 
to  accord  us  that  title." 

This  little  discourse  was  said  with  so 
mucli  charm  of  .soul  that  the  tears  came 
to  the  grand  equerry's  eyes ;  he  seized  her 
hand  and  kissed  it. 

"  Stay  during  the  hunt,"  he  said  ;  "  my 
want  of  merit  has  accustomed  me  to  these 
refusals  :  but  while  accepting  your  friend- 
ship and  that  of  the  colonel,  you  must  let 
me  satisfy  my.self,  by  the  judgment  of  com- 
petent scientific  men,  that  the  draining  of 
those  marshes  will  be  no  risk  to  the  com- 
pany you  speak  of.  before  I  agree  to  the 
generous  offer  of  your  friends.  You  are 
a  noble  girl,  and  though  my  heart  aches 
to  think  I  can  onlj^  be  your  friend,  I  will 
glory  in  that  title,  and  prove  it  to  you  at 
all  times  and  in  all  places." 


"  At  all  events,  Monsieur  le  Due,  let  us 
keep  our  secret.  My  choice  will  not  be 
known,  unless  I  betray  myself  unwit- 
tingly, until  after  my  mother's  complete 
recovery.  I  should  like  our  first  blessing 
to  come  from  her  eyes." 


XXIX. 


"Ladies, "said the  Prince de Cadignan, 

as  the  guests  were  about  to  separate  for 
the  nigiit,  "  I  remember  that  several  of 
you  propose  to  follow  the  hounds  with  us 
"to-morrow,  and  it  becomes  my  duty  to 
tell  you  that  if  you  will  be  Dianas  you 
nmst  rise,  like  Diana,  with  the  dawn 
The  meet  is  for  half-past  eight  o'clock.  I 
have  in  the  course  of  mj^  life  seen  many 
women  displaj'  greater  courage  than  men, 
but  for  a  few  seconds  only  ;  and  you  will 
need  a  strong  dose  of  resolution  to  keep 
you  on  horseback  the  whole  day,  with  the 
exception  of  a  halt  for  breakfast,  which 
will  be  taken  in  the  saddle,  as  it  were. 
Are  you  still  determined  to  show  your- 
selves trained  horsewomen?" 

"  Prince,  it  is  necessarj'  for  me  to  do 
so,"  said  Modeste,  adroitly. 

"  I  answer  for  m3'self,"  said  the  Duch- 
esse de  Cliaulieu. 

"And  I  for  my  daughter  Diane  ;  she  is 
worthj'  of  her  name,"  added  the  prince. 
"So,  then,  you  all  persist  in  your  inten- 
tions ?  However,  I  shall  arrange,  for  the 
sake  of  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  de 
Verneuil  and  others  of  the  paity  who  stay 
at  home,  to  drive  the  stag  to  the  further 
end  of  the  pond," 

"  Make  yourselves  quite  easy,  raes- 
dames,"  said  the  Prince  de  Loudon,  when 
the  Royal  Huntsman  had  left  the  room  ; 
"  that  breakfast  '  in  the  saddle  '  will  take 
place  under  a  comfortable  tent." 

The  next  day,  at  dawn,  all  signs  gave 
promise  of  a  gioinous  day.  As  the  hunting 
party  left  the  chateau,  the  Master  of  the 
Hunt,  the  Due  de  Rhetore,  and  the  Prince 
de  Loudon,  who  had  no  ladies  to  escort, 
rode  in  the  advance,  noticing  the  white 
masses  of  the  chateau,  with  its  rising 
chimneys  relieved  against  the  brilliant 
red-brown  foliage  which  the  trees  in  Nor- 
maiuly  put  on  at  the  close  of  a  fine  au- 
tumn, 

"  The  ladies  are  fortunate  in  their 
weather,"  remarked  the  Due  de  Rhe- 
tore, 

"Oh,  in  spite  of  all  their  boasting,"  re- 
plied the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  "  I  think 
they  will  let  us  hunt  without  them  !  " 

"  So  they  might,  if  each  had  not  a 
squire,"  said  the  duke. 


MODESTE    MIGNOli. 


463 


At  this  moment  the  attention  of  these 
determined  huntsmen — for  the  Prince  de 
Loudon  and  the  Due  de  Rhetore  were  of 
the  race  of  Niinrod,  and  the  best  shots 
of  the  Faubourg-  Saint  Germain^was  at- 
tracted by  a  loud  altercation;  and  they 
spurred  their  horses  to  an  open  space  at 
the  entrance  of  the  forest  of  Rosembray, 
famous  for  its  mossy  turf,  which  was  ap- 
pointed for  the  meet.  The  cause  of  the 
quarrel  was  soon  apparent.  The  Prince 
de  Loudon,  afflicted  with  anglomania,  had 
broug-lit  out  his  ovm.  hunting-  establish- 
ment, which  was  exclusively  Britannic, 
and  placed  it  under  orders  of  the  Master 
of  the  Hunt.  One  of  his  men,  a  little 
Englishman  —  fair,  pale,  insolent,  and 
phlegmatic,  scarcely  able  to  speak  a 
word  of  French,  and  dressed  with  a 
neatness  which  distinguishes  all  Britons, 
even  those  of  the  lower  classes — -had 
posted  himself  on  one  side  of  this  open 
space.  John  Barry  wore  a  short  frock- 
coat,  buttoned  tightly  at  the  waist,  made 
of  scarlet  cloth,  with  buttons  bearing  the 
De  Verneuil  aruis,  white  leather  breeches, 
top-boots,  a  striped  waistcoat,  and  a  col- 
lar and  cape  of  black  velvet.  He  held  in 
his  hand  a  small  hunting-whip,  and  hang- 
ing- to  his  wrist  by  a  silken  cord  was  a 
brass  horn.  This  man,  the  first  whipper- 
in,  was  accompanied  by  two  thoroughbred 
dogs — foxhounds,  white,  with  liver  spots, 
long  in  the  leg,  fine  in  the  muzzle,  with 
slender  heads,  and  little  ears  at  their 
crests.  The  huntsman — famous  in  the 
English  county  from  which  the  Prince  de 
Loudon  had  obtained  liim  at  great  cost — 
was  in  charge  of  an  establishment  of  fif- 
teen horses  and  sixty  English  hounds, 
which  cost  the  Due  de  Verneuil,  who  was 
nothing  of  a  huntsman,  but  chose  to  in- 
dulge his  son  in  this  essentially  royal 
taste,  an  enormous  sum  of  money. 

When  he  ari"ived  upon  the  ground,  Jolin 
found  himself  forestalled  by  three  other 
whippers-in,  in  charge  of  two  of  the  royal 
packs  of  hoimds,  which  had  been  brought 
there  in  carts.  They  were  the  three  best 
huntsmen  of  the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  and 
presented,  both  in  character  and  in  their 
distinctively  French  costume,  a  marked 
contrast  to  the  representative  of  insolent 
Albion.  These  favorites  of  the  prince, 
each  wearing  full-briranied, three-cornered 
liats,  very  flat  and  very  wide-spreading, 
beneath  which  grinned  their  swarthy, 
tanned,  and  wrinkled  faces,  lighted  by 
three  pairs  of  twinkling  eyes,  were  no- 
ticeably- lean,  sinewy,  and  vigorous,  like 
men  in  whom  sport  had  become  a  passion. 
All  three  were  supplied  with  the  immense 
horns  of  Dampierre,  wound  with  green 
worsted   cords,   leaving    only  the  brass 


tubes  visible  ;  but  they  controlled  their 
dogs  b^-  the  eye  and  voice.  Those  noble 
animals  were  far  more  faithful  and  sub- 
missive subjects  than  the  human  lieges 
whom  the  king  was  at  that  moment  ad- 
dressing :  all  were  marked  with  white, 
black,  or  liver  spots,  each  having  as  dis- 
tinctive a  countenance  as  the  soliiiers  of 
Napoleon,  their  eyes  flashing  like  dia- 
monds at  the  slightest  noise.  One  of 
them,  brought  from  Poitou,  was  short  in 
the  back,  deep  in  the  shoulder,  low-jointed, 
and  lop-eared  ;  the  other,  from  England, 
white,  fine  as  a. greyhound,  with  no  belly, 
small  earis,  and  built  for  running.  Both 
were  young,  impatient,  and  yelping  eager- 
ly, while  the  old  hounds,  on  the  contrary, 
covered  with  scars,  lay  quietly  with  their 
heads  on  their  forepaws,  and  their  ears  to 
the  earth  like  savages. 

When  they  saw  the  Englishman,  the 
royal  dogs  and  huntsmen  looked  at  each 
other  as  tliough  they  said,  '•  If  we  cannot 
hunt  by  ourselves  his  majesty's  ser\ice  is 
insulted." 

Beginning  with  jests,  the  quarrel  pres- 
estly  grew  fiercer  between  Monsieur  Jac- 
quin  la  Roulie,  the  old  French  whipper-in, 
and  John  Barry,  the  young  islander.  The 
two  princes  guessed  from  afar  the  subject 
of  the  altercation,  and  the  Master  of  the 
Hunt,  setting  spurs  to  his  horse,  brought 
it  to  an  end  by  saying,  in  a  voice  of 
authority  : 

''  Who  drew  the  wood  ?  " 

'■'I,  monseigneur,'-  said  the  English- 
man. 

"Very  good,"  rephed  the  Prince  de 
Cadignan,  proceeding  to  take  Barn,-'s 
report. 

Dogs  and  men  became  silent  and  re- 
spectful before  the  Royal  Huntsman,  as 
though  each  recognized  his  dignity  as 
supreme.  The  prince  laid  out  the  day's 
work  ;  for  it  is  with  a  hmit  as  it  is  with  a 
battle,  and  the  Master  of  Charles  X.'s 
hounds  was  the  Napoleon  of  forests. 
Thanks  to  the  admirable  system  he  in- 
troduced into  French  venery,  he  was  able 
to  turn  his  thoughts  exclusively  to  sci- 
ence and  strategy.  He  now  quietly  as- 
signed a  special  duty  to  the  Prince  de 
Loudon's  establishment,  that  of  driving 
the  stag  to  water,  when,  as  he  expected, 
the  royal  hounds  should  have  sent  it  into 
the  crown  forest  which  oiitlmed  the  hori- 
zon directly  in  front  of  the  chateau.  The 
prince  knew  well  how  to  soothe  the  self- 
love  of  his  old  huntsmen  by  giving  them 
the  most  arduous  part  of  the  work,  and 
also  that  of  the  Englishman,  whom  he 
employed  at  his  own  specialty,  affording 
him  a  chance  to  show  the  fleetncss  of  his 
horses  and  dogs  in  the  open.     The  two 


464 


THE    HUMAN    COMEDY. 


national  systems  were  thus  face  to  face 
ami  allowed  to  do  Ihcir  best  under  each 
other's  eyes. 

'•Does  monseigneur  wish  us  to  wait 
any  longer;'""'  said  La  Koulie,  respect- 
fully. 

••  I  know  what  you  mean,  old  friend," 
said  tlie  prince.     *'  It  is  late,  but—" 

"Here  come  the  ladies,"  said  the  sec- 
ond whipper-in.  At  that  moment  the 
cavalcade  of  sixteen  riders  was  seen  to 
approach,  at  the  head  of  which  were  the 
g-reeii  veils  of  the  four  ladies.  Modeste, 
accompanied  by  her  father,  the  grand 
equerry,  and  La  Briei'e,  was  in  the  ad- 
vance,' beside  the  Duchesse  de  Maufri- 
giieuse  whom  the  Vicomte  de  Serizy  es- 
corted. Beliind  them  rode  the  Duchesse 
de  Chaulieu,  tlanked  by  Canalis,  on  whom 
she  was  smilins-  without  a  trace  of  ran- 
cor. When  they  hatl  reached  the  open 
space  where  the  huntsmen  with  their  red 
coats  and  brass  bugles,  surrounded  by 
the  hounds,  made  a  picture  worthy  of 
Van  der  Meulen,  the  Duchesse  de  Chau- 
lieu, who,  in  spite  of  her  embonpoint,  sat 
her  horse  admirably,  rode  up  to  Modeste, 
finding  it  best  for  her  dignity  not  to 
avoid  that  young  person,  to  whom  on  the 
previous  evening  she  had  not  spoken  a 
word. 

When  the  Master  of  the  Hunt  finished 
his  compliments  to  the  ladies  on  their 
amazing  punctuality,  Eleonore  deigned 
to  observe  the  magnificent  whip  which 
sparkled  m  Modeste's  little  hand,  and 
graciously  asked  leave  to  look  at  it. 

"  I  have  never  seen  anything  of  the 
kind  more  beautiful,"  slie  said,  siiowing 
it  to  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse.  "  It  is  in 
keeping  with  its  possessor,"  she  added, 
returning  it  to  Modeste. 

"Yon  must  admit,  Madame  la  Duch- 
esse," answered  Mademoiselle  de  la  Bas- 
tie  with  a  tender  and  malicious  glance 
at  La  Briere.  "  t  iiat  it  is  a  rather  strange 
gift  from  llie  hand  of  a  future  husband." 

"  I  should  take  it,"  said  Madame  de 
Maufrigneuse,  "  as  a  declaration  of  my 
rights,  in  rejuembrance  of  Louis  XIV." 

La  Briere's  eyes  were  suffused,  and  for 
a  moment  he  dropped  his  reins ;  but  a 
second  glance  from  Modeste  ordered  him 
not  to  betray  his  happiness.  The  hunt 
now  began. 

The  Due  d'Herouville  took  occasion  to 
say  in  a  low  voice  to  his  fortunate  rival : 
"Monsieur,  I  hope  that  you  will  make 
your  wife  happy  ;  if  I  can  bo  useful  to  you 


in  any  way,  command  my  services ;  I 
should  be  only  too  glad  to  contribute 
to  the  happiness  of  so  charming  a  pair." 

This  great  day,  in  which  such  vast  in- 
terests of  heart  and  fortune  were  decided, 
caused  but  one  anxiety  to  the  Master  of 
the  Hunt — namely,  wliether  or  not  -the 
stag  would  cross  the  pond  and  be  killed 
on  the  lawn  before  the  liouse ;  for  hunts- 
men of  his  caliber  ai^e  like  great  chess- 
players who  can  predict  a  checkmate 
under  certain  circumstances.  The  happy 
old  man  succeeded  to  the  height  of  his 
wishes  ;  the  run  was  magnificent,  and  the 
ladies  released  him  ivoxn  his  attendance 
upon  them  for  the  hunt  of  the  next  day 
but  one — which,  however,  turned  out  to  be 
rainy. 

The  Due  de  Verneuil's  guests  sta.j'ed 
five  days  at  Rosembray.  On  the  last  day 
the  "  Gazette  de  France  "  announced  the 
appointment  of  Monsieur  le  Baron  de 
Canalis  to  the  rank  of  commander  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  and  to  the  post  of  min- 
ister at  Carlsruhe. 

When,  early  in  the  month  of  December, 
Madame  de  la  Bastie,  operated  upon  by 
Desplein,  recovered  her  sight  and  saw 
Ernest  de  la  Bi-iere  for  the  fli'st  time, 
she  iDressed  Modeste's  hand  and  whis- 
pered in  her  ear,  "  He  would  have  been 
my  own  choice." 

Toward  the  last  of  February  all  the 
deeds  for  the  estates  in  Provence  were 
signed  by  Latournelle,  and  about  that 
time  the  family  of  La  l^astie  obtained 
the  marked  honor  of  the  king's  signature 
to  the  marriage  contract  and  to  the  ordi- 
nance transmitting  their  title  and  arms 
to  La  BrierCj  who  henceforth  took  the 
name  of  La  Briere-La  Bastie.  The  estate 
of  La  Bastie  was  entailed  by  letters- 
patent  issued  about  the  end  of  April.  La 
Briere's  witnesses  on  the  occasion  of  his 
marriage  were  Canalis  and  the  minister 
wliom  he  had  sei-Aed  for  five  years  as 
secretary.  Those  of  the  bride  were  the 
Due  d'Herouville  and  Desplein,  whom 
tlie  Mignons  rewarded  with  gratitude, 
as  well  as  more  substantial  proofs  of 
their  regard. 

If  we  again  meet  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame de  La  Briere-La  Bastie,  those  who 
have  the  eyes  to  see  will  then  behold  how 
sweet,  how  easy,  is  the  marriage  3'oke 
with  an  educated  and  intelligent  woman ; 
for  Modeste  is  the  pi'ide  and  the  happi- 
ness of  her  husband,  her  family  and  all 
who  surround  her. 


END   OF  VOLUME   ONE. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


c 


.  jf3ION«.LIBB*RVFWLiT 


D     000  300  809     1 


